Gender & Theology Flashcards
Mary Daly on gender and theology
- supporter of post Christian theology which is the total abandonment of traditional Christian thought
- highlights misogyny is deeply entrenched in Christianity
- believed the masculinity of God filters down to believers, influencing a belief that men are meant to rule
Daly’s criticisms:
- language: thought in order to move away from masculinity in the Church, God should be ‘castrated’ through the use of language
- cornerstone of post Christian theology should be women’s rejection of God as a ‘being’ and instead see God just as ‘being’, God becomes a verb instead of a noun
- the Fall: claims the story is just an attempt to explain the unfairness of the human condition, “to be female is to be deviant by definition in the prevailing culture”
- incarnation: Jesus as a male messiah implies because women messed up the world, a man must come fix it
- women today should not have to turn to a 2000 year old man to legitimise their views
the ‘Unholy Trinity’:
- Christianity has created an ‘unholy trinity’ of rape, genocide, and war, which upholds the Christian Church through continued violence and oppression towards women
- rape: instances of rape in the Bible show that women are viewed as property, simply existent for the pleasure of men
- believed rape, along with other forms of violence exists within a patriarchal society as a form of male entertainment
- genocide: rape culture objectifies a women, and sets men as a whole against women as a whole
- genocide is the same violation as rape but on a corporate scale
- war: war is inevitable in a male-dominated world, and the ‘phallic mentality’ of politics inevitably leads to violence
- Christianity has a tradition of justifying war if there is a just cause, which Daly always argues there is not
- same can be said about abortion and euthanasia, but both of these are rejected as ‘against the will of God’
- Daly thinks the actions of the unholy trinity are so deeply ingrained in the Church, that change would be impossible
- for Daly, Christianity needs to be left behind, as the oppression of women is too tightly connected to Christian tradition
criticisms:
- Fiorenza argues women can take strength from the description of Jesus engaging with women
- Jesus’ enabling of women highlights an equality between the two genders
- Simon Chan argues God is a heavenly father for all and does not discriminate between genders
Rosemary Radford Ruther on gender and theology
- supporter of reform feminist theology which is the theory that traditional Christian thought should be changed, but not abandoned entirely
- believed due to centuries of masculine Church tradition, the focus of Christianity had shifted away from God and onto male leadership
- For Ruether, if religious doctrines do not match the experiences of the people they appeal to, then the doctrines need to change
- Ruether supports reform over abolition of the Church because of two key distinctions:
1) Jesus not being ‘The Davidic Messiah’
2) God can be understood in feminine terms
the ‘Davidic Messiah’
- throughout the Old Testament, scripture refers to ‘Gods chosen one’, a messiah
- this messiah has always been shown as a military king, hence the title of ‘Davidic Messiah’ (named after King David who killed the Goliath and conquered Israel for the Jewish people)
- in Christian context, this messiah was Jesus, who came to free Gods people from evil
- however, Ruether thought Jesus didn’t fit into this ‘warrior-king expectation’
- instead of being violent and militaristic, Jesus sought to love those around him
- she believed Jesus’ relationship with God is one of a loving parent and child
God is a women:
- the Holy Spirit: the Bible consistently aligns the Holy Spirit with the ancient Greek concept of Sophia which is a form of wisdom, which is often personified as a women
- Jesus: Jesus was kind, loving and patient, which are all feminist qualities
- its these features that are important to his message, his gender is wholly irrelevant
- by presenting Jesus through a purely masculine lens, women are displaced from the concept of God, but that connection can easily be reclaimed
- God the father: Ruether highlights several examples of female Gods through history: such as Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of the earth
- these feminine depictions have been covered up by patriarchy and women need simply to recover that
criticisms:
- Simon Chan claims you cannot rewrite the Christian idea of God to better fit feminist agenda
- thought downplaying the masculinity of God would not be only incorrect, but disrespectful
