gender theology Flashcards
theology: gender and theology
Misogyny in St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
“Wives, submit to your husbands.”
Misogyny in St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man.”
2 Samuel 13:1-22
Ammnon rapes his sister Tamar before sending her away from the house in shame.
R. R. Ruether’s religious position.
Roman Catholic feminist liberation theologian.
Feminisation of God in Isaiah 42:14.
“Now i will cry out like a woman in labour, i will gasp and pant.”
Traditional Jewish definition of wisdom.
Source of life and knowledge.
Wisdom in Hebrew and Greek.
‘Hokhamh’ and ‘Sophia’.
King Solomon’s wisdom as his bride quotations.
- “a breath of the power of God.”
- “reflection of His eternal light.”
- “a spotless mirror of the working God.”
Male version of ‘sophia’ used in reference to Jesus by John.
‘Logos’.
R. R. Ruether’s idea of Jesus and God’s relationship and teachings for human relationships.
Jesus refers to God as ‘Abba’ and has a relationship built from trust and respect, teaching that relationships between humans should all be like this rather than with the master-slave complex historically common.
Jesus’ quote about his relationship to the people in John 15.
“I do not call you servants any longer […]; but I have called you friends”
R. R. Ruether’s main book.
Sexism and God-Talk.
Arguments for why a male saviour cannot save a woman.
- Christ, in his maleness, represents the perfect human; thus women can not be perfect humans without negelecting their true identity and becoming masulinized.
- The Davidic King perception of Jesus with emphasis on his masculinity results in oppression of women within the Church.
Aquinas’ teaching on women and Jesus.
“Misbegotten” forms of men, thus Jesus could not have been incarnated as a “defective” woman.
Arguments for why a male saviour can save a woman.
- Jesus was a Messiah figure, with feminine attributes, rather than the violent Davidic Warrior expected.
- The Holy Spirit is important in healing relationships and institutions without gender-specifications.
- Jesus called for the inclusivity of all people, showing compassion and love to everyone no matter who they are.
Claim of the Declaration Inter Insigniores (1976).
A “natural resemblance” between Christ and his ministers is necessary.
R. R. Ruether quote on Jesus and liberator.
“Jesus as liberator calls for a renunciation”
R. R. Ruether quote on Jesus’ maleness.
“The maleness of Jesus has no ultimate significance.”
M. Daly’s 1971 sermon specifics.
In the Harvard Memorial Chapel, she called for all men and women to leave the church.
Nietzsche’s influences.
- Rediscovering ‘archaic’ meanings of languages.
- Transvaluation.
- The Apollonian and Dionysian.
- The lack of a God means there is no end point to being human, but it is an ongoing creative process.
The Apollonian self.
The passive aspects of human nature.
The Dionysian self.
The energetic and creative aspects of human nature.
The Apollonian veil.
False expectations humans follow which alienate them from their Dionysian self.
Be-ing.
Spiritual process in discovering nature and the true self, in replacement of the idea of a God.
M. Daly’s criticisms of Neitzsche.
The male Ubermensch and label of Apollonian features as feminine shows the perpetuation of misogyny.
M. Daly quote on Nietzsche.
“Nietzsche, the prophet whose prophecy was short circuted by his own misogynism.”
M. Daly’s quote on the mission for women.
“Women will have to assume the burden of castrating the phallic ethic.”
M. Daly’s feminist dictionary.
Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (1987)
M. Daly’s idea of the new phase of history.
the ‘Amazon’ age in which women had revolted against oppression and lived alongside nature in same-sex relations.
Wittgenstein quote on language.
“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”
Foreground.
World dominated by Apollonian values, with the male leader ‘snools’ sucking the life forced out of women and nature.
Background.
Overshadowed by men; women living in true ‘be-ing’.
M. Daly’s criticism of Christianity.
Encouraged masculine dominance over women through the encouraged worship of men and the rape of the Virgin Mary; claims the cruxifiction demonstrates male enjoyment of pain, torture and sexual dominance.
The Most Unholy trinity.
The rape, genocide and war enabelled by the phallocentric power of the Church.
Rape culture.
The modern culture in which the communities in power alienate, exploit and destroy the individuality of other communities.
Similarities between R. R. Ruether and M. Daly.
- Calling God by female terms is not sufficient in altering the fundementally male perception of God.
- Only feminism can heal the relationship between nature and humanity.
- Feminist theology intends to transform society.
- Women play a special role in the revolting against patriachy.
Difference between R. R. Ruether and M. Daly.
- Daly rejects God.
- Ruether belives Christianity can be transformed and evolved.
- Ruether doesnt involve sexuality in her belief.
- Ruether defends the idea that there is feminitity intertwined in ancient Christianity.
Critique of Ruether.
- She creates a version of Jesus too political and revolutionary.
- She cherry-picks excerpts from the Bible to suit her theory.
- Using ‘Goddess’ language compromises the sovereignty of God.
- Disregards the ‘natural order’ of male and female roles in society and in family taught in Christianity.
Critique of M. Daly.
- Her ideas and aims around language is unrealistic and too-specific.
- Christianity is unlikely to ever be completely rejected.
- Too exclusive, alienating women who are not white, lesbian, academic and western, as well as men as a whole.
- Dismisses those of other religions or spiritual beliefs as ‘snools’ and calls them “totally demonic”.
- Not all women find religion or relations with men to be oppressive and restrictive.
Her ideology is too radical and irrational to be related to by the vast majority of feminists.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s contribution.
Points out the female leaders of the early church, e.g. Pricilla (Acts), Apphia (Philemon) and Pheobe (Romans).
Catharina Halkes’ contribution.
Jesus’ described Kingdom of Heaven requires social and spiritual transformation, so women must expand their skill of compassion into the public sphere and men must learn from this through releasing their sense of entitlement.
Ruther on feminist theology.
“the critical princile of feminist theology is the promotion of the full humanitiy of women.”
Andocentric
Centered on men.
Genesis 3:16
“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Idea in Deuteronomy 20:14
That God gives women and children the same as he does livestock, as plunder which belongs to whoever takes them and they have the right to do as they wish with their plunder as it is a gift from God.
What Ruther claims is the only difference between men and women.
Reproductive roles, otherwise we are androgenous and gender roles are exstitential.
Left brain activity.
- Analytic thought.
- Logic.
- Language.
- Maths and Science.
Right brain activity.
- Holistic thought.
- Intuition.
- Creativity.
- Art and Music.
The two idenities for women in the Bible to Ruether.
Mary the Virgin and Eve the Temptress.
15th Century Dominican manuel on women behaving ‘differently’.
“The natural reason is that she is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations.”
Marginalised forms of Church.
- Montanism, centered on the Holy Spirit.
- Gnostic, with androgneous ideas of God.
Feminism as part of the prophecy, in Isiah.
“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decree”.
Ruthers four themes in prophetic liberating-traditions.
- God’s defence of the oppressed.
- Critique of dominant systems of power.
- Vision of an age without injustice under God.
- Critique of religious ideology maintaining injustice.
Forms of female liberation movements Reuther criticises.
- Romanticism.
- Liberalism.
- Marxism.
What Reuther expects of the chuch.
- Commits and contributes to fight against womens oppression.
- Changes language used for God.
- Inclusive to women.
- Re-questions clericalism.
Monatism’s Priscilla claim.
Jesus slept beside her “in the form of a woman.”
Daphne Hampson’s criticisms of Reuther.
- Historical roots of Christianity are sexist.
- The incarnation and doctrine following are sexist.
- The revelation in Christ is sexist and the world continues to be after.
Mary Daly on women leaving the church.
“Let us affirm our faith in ourselves and our will to transendence by rising and walking out together.”
Mary Daly on what partiachy as done.
“Patriachy has stolen our cosmos, and turned it into Cosmopolitan magazine.”
Mary Daly’s two identities of women.
The Virgin, Mary, and the Whore, Mary Magdalene.
Mary Daly’s idea of God as a noun.
God has been described as a noun, an otherwordly, gap-filler, judge who is unchanging and static.
Mary Daly on God as a verb.
God must be seen as an on-going process of change, actualising and a force.
Mary Daly on original sin.
Turning women into objects restricted to their biological fate.
Mary Daly on salvation.
It is not a passive acceptance, but a participation in be-ing.
Numbers 31
“All the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
Audre Lorde’s criticisms of Daly.
That sh ignores the story and history of black women, whose oppression is significantly greater than white womens.
