feminist theology

• First women ordained as a priest in the Church of England in Bristol Cathedral

  12 March 1994
• The role of women in Churches has changed significantly in the last 30 years in the Church of England, but not in the Roman Catholic Church</b>
• Pope Francis has declared that 'that door is closed' for women in the Roman Catholic Church
• There remain strong disagreements within the Churches about women in leadership roles
• The roles of women in some Churches have changed seismically within a generation
• Church of England ordained the first woman priest

  1994
• Church of England ordained the first woman Bishop

  2014
• Around a third of priests in the Church of England are women
• The number of women in senior roles in the Church of England doubled between 2014 and 2017
• 25 out of 117 senior roles in the Church of England are now women
• The most senior woman in the Church of England

  Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, the 3rd most senior Bishop
• There are women ministers in most Protestant Churches – eg Methodists, Baptists, United Reformed Churches
• There are other groups within the Church which reject womens' ordination
• Catholic arguments against female ordination

  • The argument from 'tradition'
  • The arguments of theological anthropology and Christ's example
  • The argument of apostolic succession
  • Women are equal in dignity to men, but even the Virgin Mary was not an apostle. They have a special but different role.
• Vincentian Canon


  A 5th century test of orthodoxy - 'what has been believed everywhere, always, by all' (in Latin: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus)
• The argument from 'tradition'


  • The Church should be united in holding the same faith as all other generations
• The arguments of theological anthropology and Christ's example


  • Jesus only chose men, showing that is what God wants. It was his 'eternal plan' for humanity.
• The argument of apostolic succession


  • Priests stand in the unbroken line of the apostles, who were all men.
• Women


  • Are equal in dignity to men, but even the Virgin Mary was not an apostle. They have a special but different role.
• ‘The myth is not neutral; it is highly dangerous. It is a brilliant, subtle, elaborate, male cultural projection, calculated to legitimise a  patriarchal world and to enable men to find their way within in”

  Mary Daly.
• unholy trinity 


  rape, genocide, and war - mary daly
• Rosemary Radford Ruether


  Argues that Christianity is not authentically patriarchal but has been distorted through history
• Radford Ruether's views


  • Remained within the Roman Catholic Church
  • Called for a recognition of the feminine aspects of Christianity
• Radford Ruether: 'True Christianity was not authentically sexist and the Jesus of history was not sexist'
• Jewish Wisdom figure - Sophia


  Female figure in Proverbs and much Jewish writing, basis for much of the theology of the Holy Spirit
• Christological layers that built up in the early centuries

  Changed the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith
• Patriarchalization of Christianity


  Definite stages
• ruthers 3 strands 


  androgynous christiologies

  spirit christiologies

  feminist christiologies
• androgynous christiologies 


  •Through history there has been a strand of theology which emphasised Jesus' humanity rather than his gender.  Jesus is neither male nor female but above all that,

  •Sometimes it goes back to Adam before his rib was removed and sees that the first human contained male and female.

  • The mystical writer Julian of Norwich described Jesus as both mother and father; that he feeds us with his body; that he nurtures us with milk like a mother.
• spirit christiologies 


  •In the early centuries  there were prophets and prophetesses who spoke in the 'power of the Spirit'
• feminist theologies 


  •The Jesus of history challenged the religious and social hierarchy of his time. He wanted a reversal of social orders. He spent his time with women, healed the woman with the haemorrhage, talking with prostitutes and with those at the bottom of the social pile. For Ruether, Jesus is the liberator who stands out against this and his gender is unimportant.'the idolatrous system of patriarchal privilege. This system is unmasked and shown to have no connection with God".

  •He saves women and liberates them from
• For Ruether, Jesus’ gender does not affect his ability to save.  She concludes:

  “Theologically speaking, then, we might say that the maleness of Jesus has no ultimate significance. It has social, symbolic significance in the framework of societies of patriarchal privilege. In this sense Jesus is the Christ, the representative of liberated humanity and the liberating Word of God, manifests the kenosis [self-emptying] of patriarchy, the announcement of the new humanity through a lifestyle that discards hierarchical caste privilege and speaks on behalf of the laity”

  Sexism and God talk, p, 115
• daly's 3 strands

  women were made the scapegoats

  they accepted the blame

  the bible focused on bad women
• Daly: 'Rape does not seem to be a terrible crime in the Old Testament, but women are treated as 'spoils of crime'. This has set a terrible precedent for history.'
• Rape in the Old Testament


  • The story in Judges 19 where the concubine is cut into 12 pieces and sent around Israel after she had been gang-raped
  • The one of Lot's daughters when the angels visited the house
• The crimes are always presented as being against the men, the women merely treated as their property
• Rape, especially within the context of war, has been seen in history as legitimate, part of the politics of domination and the Bible is partly to blame
• Tribes are wiped out in the Bible
• The Church has too often turned a blind eye to genocide
• The Church approved Nazism and the American Catholic Bishops campaigned against abortion but did not speak out against the Napalm bombing of the IndoChinese in Vietnam