Gender And Theology

Question 1

Patriarchy

Answer 1

Male centred rule

Question 2

Phyllis Trible

Answer 2

‘To reclaim the image of God as female is to become aware of the male idolatry that has long infested faith’

Question 3

Rosemary Radford Ruether wants to

Answer 3

Reinterpret Christianity to make it more usable for women

Question 4

Ruether on sophia

Answer 4

The term logos replaced sophia to explain Jesus’ divinity. This led to a tradition of male leadership

Question 5

Logos

Answer 5

Male wisdom

Question 6

Sophia

Answer 6

Female wisdom

Question 7

Warrior messiah

Answer 7

Jesus was very different to expectations

Question 8

RR Ruether on what’s most important about the messiah

Answer 8

Not a list of warrior characteristics but instead self sacrifice and forgiveness (Sermon on the Mount)

Question 9

RR Ruether on messiahs gender

Answer 9

In order to be the saviour Jesus did not need to be male

Question 10

Ruether drawing lines from messiah to Church

Answer 10

Priests to Christ, both don’t need to be male

Question 11

Catholics on being the same gender

Answer 11

Christ takes spirituality of priests and so must be the same gender

Question 12

Ruether preventing alienation

Answer 12

If Jesus does not need to be male then it’d help women feeling they’re praying to a male figure who cannot fully understand what it is to be a woman

Question 13

Women’s role in Christianity with Jesus

Answer 13

Healing the woman bleeding for 12 years

Forgiving the woman caught in adultery

Women the first to witness Jesus resurrection and were leaders in the Early Church

Question 14

Master servant defeated

Answer 14

Jesus called God Abba - a new intimate relationship between humanity and God, community of equals

Question 15

Feminism shouldn’t inspire change

Answer 15

Theological level not relevant to the day to day believer who isn’t theologically trained

Even Church of England, allowing women priests are seeing a decline

Cannot rewrite 2000 years of Christianity, in fact society should change

Question 16

Transvaluation

Answer 16

A change of values often radical

Question 17

Daly quote

Answer 17

‘If God is male, then the male is God’

The biblical image of God has led to a society which oppresses and abuses women

Question 18

Daly rejects interpreting differently as

Answer 18

We are portraying the same male God in different words

Question 19

Nietzsche

Answer 19

Influenced Daly, in declaring that God is dead saw hope for a new way of thinking

Question 20

Christianity should be abandoned

Answer 20

Religion is too much of a ruling ethic to not have an effect on society

2000 years too deep rooted

Question 21

Christianity shouldn’t be abandoned

Answer 21

Christianity should need a reform from its patriarchy not abandonment

God is not male he is ineffable, not only genderless but is nothing at all

Question 22

Mary Daly’s unholy trinity

Answer 22

Rape

Genocide

War

Question 23

Rape

Answer 23

Rapism - all violent oppression in society, racism, nuclear arms race, man made poverty and ecological disasters

Question 24

Mary Daly on Mary

Answer 24

Virgin Mary as a symbol of purity instead is the ‘total rape victim’

Legitimised rape of women

Question 25

Genocide

Answer 25

One group have a power over and can destroy another entire group

Catholic Church Banning of abortion

Question 26

War

Answer 26

Male dominated politics and the obsession with male virtues such as bravery and violence

Question 27

What mentality does Daly give to male war mentality

Answer 27

‘Phallic mentality’

Question 28

Daly’s views are quite narrow

Answer 28

White
Lesbian
Professional
Western

Question 29

Can a male saviour save women

Answer 29

Ruether - no but if you strip the masculine imagery off then yes

Daly - No, should invent a new spirituality based on nature without using gender terms