G&T: RUETHER Flashcards
What does Ruether state about God and creation?
“God is not a ‘being’ removed from creation, ruling it from outside in the manner of a patriarchal ruler”.
What does Ruether believe Christianity has become distorted by?
Patriarchal tradition and is in need of reform.
What does Ruether believe about the Catholic Church’s teachings on women’s ordination and abortion?
Have been influenced and distorted by patriarchy.
What does Ruether believe patriarchy has shaped?
Christian thought about God, which too needs to be challenged.
What does the Hebrew Scriptures view the Messiah as?
God’s chosen one.
What three things define the Messiah?
- Future king in a new kingdom.
- Son of David.
- Restorer of Isreal as an autonomous power.
What does the Messiah do for the people?
Deliverer from bondage through battle and liberator of people from their enemies.
What does the Messiah’s special relationship with God mean?
God’s favour will shine upon these people.
What is stated about the gender of the messiah?
“The Messiah can only be imagined as a male”.
What does Ruether argue about the somewhat unconventional nature of Jesus?
Jesus was not the traditional warrior Messiah that was expected.
What did Ruether state about the expectations of Jesus as the Messiah?
“He is expected to win, not suffer and die on the cross”.
What future did Jesus bring? What future was actually expected?
The future that Jesus’ brings is not the military victory of the male Messiah.
What two things did Jesus do that contradicted the idea of the Messiah?
- Was a servant King.
2. Attended to the poor and dispossessed rather than the highest in social order.
What did Jesus criticise?
Jewish authorities and the reigning powers such as the Roman ruler Ponticus Pilate.
Where is there evidence of Jesus as a servant king?
Warned his disciples of lording over others - washing of feet.
What did Ruether state about Jesus as a servant king?
“By becoming a servant of God what is freed from bondage of all human masters”.
What does Reuther argue as an alternative to the male symbol of the Davidic Messiah?
Not the Davidic Military Messiah but a self-sacrificing, redeeming, servant Messiah who is limited to the female notion of wisdom.
What did Ruether believe Christianity should not bundle?
The maleness of historical Jesus and maleness of Davidic Messiah into the Christian concept of Messiah.
What does the greek word ‘Sophia’ mean?
For ‘wisdom’ was personified in female form as a goddess.
What does Reuther argue about the term ‘Sophia’?
That early Christians continued to refer to ‘Sophia’ as divine wisdom.
What is divine wisdom in scripture?
Referred to in female terms.
What is God associated with?
Wisdom, which is again feminine.
What has Christianity merged?
The notion of divine wisdom into the notion of messianic king.
What has the merging of divine wisdom into messianic king resulted in the idea of?
Female wisdom has become obscured behind a patriarchal view of the male Messiah - Jesus.
What is divine wisdom closely linked with for Ruether?
Jesus Christ and wisdom being referred to in female terms.
What is the Messiah other than a male version of God?
The incarnation of wisdom - female.
What does Ruether refer to God as?
‘Gaia’ - the Ancient Greek goddess of the earth.
What is Ruether seeking to recover?
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.
What does Ruether believe this fuller understanding produces?
A truer reflection of imageo dei - made in the image and likeness of God.
What does Chan argue you cannot do?
Re-write Christianity to give more prominence to women because it is the story itself that shapes Christian identity.
What does Chan point out about the phrase ‘Almighty Father’?
Is integrated within the Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Prayer.
What does Chan argue that re-writing central prayers would be?
Wrong to downplay the ‘maleness’.
What does Chan acknowledge about femininity present in Christianity?
Many feminine images are used to describe God - love, protecting but God could never be called ‘mother’.
What does using female language for God not do?
Make society less patriarchal, and using male language for God does not make it more patriarchal.
What example does Chan give of patriarchy and religion?
“Devotion to the goddess Kali in Hinduism, for instance, has never resulted in better treatment of women”.
