Feminist Theology

• Rosemary Radford Ruether believes that androcentrism (male-centredness) permeates the Bible and theological traditions, presenting Eve as more responsible for sin than Adam, valuing Mary for passive qualities that enable men to exercise power, and portraying women as subject to men (Ephesians 5:24).
• Ruether argues that androcentrism need not be the fate of Christianity, pointing to marginalised movements which viewed women as apostles (Gnosticism) and leaders (Quakers).
• The Hebrew prophetic tradition, including Jesus, was not feminist in nature, but can be seen on a trajectory toward feminism since it fought for the oppressed and criticised any religious ideology supporting inequality.
• The Church should reform itself through inclusive language, fighting for women’s rights and establishing female ‘base communities’, according to Ruether.
• Mary Daly agrees with Ruether that androcentrism permeates the Bible and Church traditions, but believes that Christianity is too aligned with patriarchy to be able to reform itself.
• Daly called for women to be anti-church.
• The gravest sin in the Bible was not the eating of the fruit in Genesis, but the pronouncement that women would be subject to men; this meant that half of the human race would be treated as objects in an unjust sexual caste system.
• The act of subjugating women is at the basis of the unholy trinity of rape, genocide and war (see Numbers 31: 17-18).
• The Church has turned God into a noun, a static, changeless judge and ruler, according to Daly.
• Daly views God as a verb; God is in the process of becoming with the universe.
• Women need to turn away from Bibliolatry and Christolatry;, indeed, they need to reject all of patriarchal society and find their support in a ‘sisterhood’, according to Daly.
• The ordination (literally ‘setting apart’) of women to Church leadership did not happen in any major way until the final decades of the twentieth century.
• In 1992, the Church of England (CoE) voted to ordain women; congregations fought successfully for the right to reject woman priests in 1993.
• In 1994, nearly 1500 women were ordained; at the same time, nearly 500 male clergy left the CoE, many becoming Catholic priests (including married priests).
• Currently there is a higher proportion of unpaid women clergy than male clergy; the first female CoE Bishop, Libby Lane, appointed in 2015 and women clergy have had to fight for maternity rights and fair interview processes.