G&T: RUETHER

Question 1

What does Ruether state about God and creation?

Answer 1

“God is not a ‘being’ removed from creation, ruling it from outside in the manner of a patriarchal ruler”.

Question 2

What does Ruether believe Christianity has become distorted by?

Answer 2

Patriarchal tradition and is in need of reform.

Question 3

What does Ruether believe about the Catholic Church’s teachings on women’s ordination and abortion?

Answer 3

Have been influenced and distorted by patriarchy.

Question 4

What does Ruether believe patriarchy has shaped?

Answer 4

Christian thought about God, which too needs to be challenged.

Question 5

What does the Hebrew Scriptures view the Messiah as?

Answer 5

God’s chosen one.

Question 6

What three things define the Messiah?

Answer 6

• Future king in a new kingdom.
• Son of David.
• Restorer of Isreal as an autonomous power.

Question 7

What does the Messiah do for the people?

Answer 7

Deliverer from bondage through battle and liberator of people from their enemies.

Question 8

What does the Messiah’s special relationship with God mean?

Answer 8

God’s favour will shine upon these people.

Question 9

What is stated about the gender of the messiah?

Answer 9

“The Messiah can only be imagined as a male”.

Question 10

What does Ruether argue about the somewhat unconventional nature of Jesus?

Answer 10

Jesus was not the traditional warrior Messiah that was expected.

Question 11

What did Ruether state about the expectations of Jesus as the Messiah?

Answer 11

“He is expected to win, not suffer and die on the cross”.

Question 12

What future did Jesus bring? What future was actually expected?

Answer 12

The future that Jesus’ brings is not the military victory of the male Messiah.

Question 13

What two things did Jesus do that contradicted the idea of the Messiah?

Answer 13

1. Was a servant King.

2. Attended to the poor and dispossessed rather than the highest in social order.

Question 14

What did Jesus criticise?

Answer 14

Jewish authorities and the reigning powers such as the Roman ruler Ponticus Pilate.

Question 15

Where is there evidence of Jesus as a servant king?

Answer 15

Warned his disciples of lording over others - washing of feet.

Question 16

What did Ruether state about Jesus as a servant king?

Answer 16

“By becoming a servant of God what is freed from bondage of all human masters”.

Question 17

What does Reuther argue as an alternative to the male symbol of the Davidic Messiah?

Answer 17

Not the Davidic Military Messiah but a self-sacrificing, redeeming, servant Messiah who is limited to the female notion of wisdom.

Question 18

What did Ruether believe Christianity should not bundle?

Answer 18

The maleness of historical Jesus and maleness of Davidic Messiah into the Christian concept of Messiah.

Question 19

What does the greek word ‘Sophia’ mean?

Answer 19

For ‘wisdom’ was personified in female form as a goddess.

Question 20

What does Reuther argue about the term ‘Sophia’?

Answer 20

That early Christians continued to refer to ‘Sophia’ as divine wisdom.

Question 21

What is divine wisdom in scripture?

Answer 21

Referred to in female terms.

Question 22

What is God associated with?

Answer 22

Wisdom, which is again feminine.

Question 23

What has Christianity merged?

Answer 23

The notion of divine wisdom into the notion of messianic king.

Question 24

What has the merging of divine wisdom into messianic king resulted in the idea of?

Answer 24

Female wisdom has become obscured behind a patriarchal view of the male Messiah - Jesus.

Question 25

What is divine wisdom closely linked with for Ruether?

Answer 25

Jesus Christ and wisdom being referred to in female terms.

Question 26

What is the Messiah other than a male version of God?

Answer 26

The incarnation of wisdom - female.

Question 27

What does Ruether refer to God as?

Answer 27

‘Gaia’ - the Ancient Greek goddess of the earth.

Question 28

What is Ruether seeking to recover?

Answer 28

A full account of human nature and a fuller picture of the divine by balancing male and female in our understanding of human nature and God.

Question 29

What does Ruether believe this fuller understanding produces?

Answer 29

A truer reflection of imageo dei - made in the image and likeness of God.

Question 30

What does Chan argue you cannot do?

Answer 30

Re-write Christianity to give more prominence to women because it is the story itself that shapes Christian identity.

Question 31

What does Chan point out about the phrase ‘Almighty Father’?

Answer 31

Is integrated within the Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Prayer.

Question 32

What does Chan argue that re-writing central prayers would be?

Answer 32

Wrong to downplay the ‘maleness’.

Question 33

What does Chan acknowledge about femininity present in Christianity?

Answer 33

Many feminine images are used to describe God - love, protecting but God could never be called ‘mother’.

Question 34

What does using female language for God not do?

Answer 34

Make society less patriarchal, and using male language for God does not make it more patriarchal.

Question 35

What example does Chan give of patriarchy and religion?

Answer 35

“Devotion to the goddess Kali in Hinduism, for instance, has never resulted in better treatment of women”.