Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts and matriarchal religion.
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Feminist theology attempts to consider every aspect of religious practice and thought. Some of the questions feminist theologians ask are:
Development of Theology According to Grenz and Olson in their review of Feminist Theology, "it was developed in three distinct steps. They begin with a critique of the past” such that they review the ways women have been oppressed; “they seek alternative biblical and extrabiblical traditions that support” the ideals Feminists are trying to advance; and finally “feminists set forth their own unique method of theology, which includes the revisioning of Christian categories.”[1] Grenz and Olson also mention, however, while all feminists agree there is a flaw in the system, there is disagreement over how far outside of the Bible and the Christian tradition women are willing to go to seek support for their ideals.[2]
The primacy of a monotheistic or near-monotheistic "Great Goddess" is advocated by some modern matriarchists as a female version of, preceding, or analogue to, the Abrahamic God associated with the historical rise of monotheism in the Mediterranean Axis Age.
Mother Nature (sometimes known as Mother Earth) is a common representation of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing features of nature by embodying it in the form of the mother. Images of women representing mother earth, and mother nature, are timeless. In prehistoric times, goddesses were worshipped for their association with fertility, fecundity, and agricultural bounty. Priestesses held dominion over aspects of Incan, Assyrian, Babylonian, Slavonic, Roman, Greek, Indian, and Iroquoian religions in the millennia prior to the inception of Patriarchal religion.
Others who practice feminist spirituality may instead adhere to a feminist re-interpretation of Western monotheistic traditions. In those cases, the notion of God as having a male gender is rejected, and God is not referred to using male pronouns. Feminist spirituality may also object to images of God that they perceive as authoritarian, parental, or disciplinarian, instead emphasizing "maternal" attributes such as nurturing, acceptance, and creativity.
New Thought as a movement had no single origin, but was rather propelled along by a number of spiritual thinkers and philosophers and emerged through a variety of religious denominations and churches, particularly the Unity Church, Religious Science, and Church of Divine Science.[3] It was a feminist movement in that most of its teachers and students were women; notable among the founders of the movement were Emma Curtis Hopkins, known as the "teacher of teachers" Myrtle Fillmore, Malinda Cramer, and Nona L. Brooks;[3] with its churches and community centers mostly led by women, from the 1880s to today.[4][5]
Christian feminism is an aspect of feminist theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. Christian feminists argue that contributions by women in that direction are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity.[6] Christian feminists believe that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex and race.[7] Their major issues include the ordination of women, male dominance in Christian marriage, recognition of equal spiritual and moral abilities, reproductive rights, and the search for a feminine or gender-transcendent divine.[8][9][10][11][12] Christian feminists often draw on the teachings of other religions and ideologies in addition to biblical evidence.[13]
Two authors whose works are vital to an understanding of feminist theology are Mary Daly and Rosemary Radford Ruether.
Mary Daly grew up an Irish Catholic and all of her education was received through Catholic schools. She has three doctorate degrees. One from St. Mary’s College in sacred theology, and two from University of Fribourg, Switzerland in theology and philosophy. From 1966 till the end of her career she taught at Boston College. While in her early works Daly expressed a desire to reform Christianity from the inside, she would later come to the same point as several other feminists, that Christianity is not able to enact the necessary changes as it is. (Prologue Daly). “On November 14, 1971, when she was invited to be the first woman to preach at Harvard Memorial Chapel. She used the opportunity to denounce Christianity as irredeemable for women and to call for women (and men) to make an exodus from the Church. Almost all the women who attended this service walked out with her, as well as a few men.”[14] Her works include: The Church and the Second Sex (1968), Beyond God the Father (1973), Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978), Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984), Webster’s First Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (1987), and Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage (1992). According to Ford’s The Modern Theologians, “Mary Daly has done more than anyone to clarify the problems women have concerning the central core symbolism of Chrisianity, and its effects on their self-understanding and their relationship to God.”[15]
Rosemary Radford Ruether grew up Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools through her sophomore year of high school. She was a classics major at Scripps College, worked for the Delta Ministry in 1965 and taught at Howard University School of Religion from 1966 to 1976.[16] She has also “been responsible for the production of some twenty-two books…and at least five hundred articles.”[17] “Rosemary Ruether has written on the question of Christian credibility, with particular attention to ecclesiology and its engagement with church-world conflicts; Jewish-Christian relations…; politics and religion in America; and Feminism."[18]
The term Christian egalitarianism is sometimes preferred by those advocating gender equality and equity among Christians who do not wish to associate themselves with the feminist movement.
See also: Unity Church, Christian Science, Christian theological praxis and Postmodern Christianity.
Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilised secular and European or non-Muslim feminist discourses and recognise the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.[19] Advocates of the movement seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through the Quran (holy book), hadith (sayings of Muhammad) and sharia (law) towards the creation of a more equal and just society.[20] Muslim majority countries have produced more than seven female heads of state including Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Mame Madior Boye of Senegal, Tansu Çiller of Turkey, Kaqusha Jashari of Kosovo, Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia and Bangladesh was the first country in the world to have an elected female head-of-state follow another which includes Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina.[21]
Within Ancient Hinduism, women have been held in equal honor as men. Manusmriti for example states: The society that provides respect and dignity to women flourishes with nobility and prosperity. And a society that does not put women on such a high pedestal has to face miseries and failures regardless of howsomuch noble deeds they perform otherwise. Manusmrithi Chapter 3 Verse 56.
Within the Vedas the Hindu holy texts, Women were given the highest possible respect and equality. The Vedic period was glorified by this tradition. Many rishis were women. Indeed several of them authored many of the slokas in the Vedas. For instance, in the Rigveda there is a list of women rishis. Some of them are: Ghosha, Godha, Gargi, Vishwawra, Apala, Upanishad, Brahmjaya, Aditi, Indrani, Sarma, Romsha, Maitreyi, Kathyayini, Urvashi, Lopamudra, Yami, Shashwati, Sri, Laksha and many others. In the Vedic period women were free to enter into brahmacharya just like men, and attain salvation.
During Hindu marriage ceremonies the following slokas are uttered by the grooms but, these days, their import little understood or ever attempted to understand.
"O bride! I accept your hand to enhance our joint good fortune. I pray to you to accept me as your husband and live with me until our old age. …" Rigveda Samhita Part -4, sukta 85, sloka 9702
"O bride! May you be like the empress of your mother-in-law, father-in-law, sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law (sisters and brothers of the groom). May your writ run in your house."- Rigveda Samhita Part -4, sukta 85, sloka 9712
This beautifully lyrical sloka from the Atharvaveda clearly states that the woman leads and the man follows: "The Sun God follows the first illuminated and enlightened goddess Usha (dawn) in the same manner as men emulate and follow women." Athravaveda Samhita, Part 2, Kanda 27, sukta 107, sloka 5705.
Women were considered to be the embodiment of great virtue and wisdom. Thus we have: "O bride! May the knowledge of the Vedas be in front of you and behind you, in your centre and in your ends. May you conduct your life after attaining the knowledge of the Vedas. May you be benevolent, the harbinger of good fortune and health and live in great dignity and indeed illuminate your husband's home." Atharva Veda 14-1-64. Women were allowed full freedom of worship."The wife should do agnihotra (yagna), sandhya (puja) and all other daily religious rituals. If, for some reason, her husband is not present, the woman alone has full rights to do yagna." Rigveda Samhita, part 1, sukta 79, sloka 872.
Moving on towards the Monotheistic era of Hinduism when such ideals such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism, a specific deity for feministic worship was bought about under the Shaktism branch. From a Hinduism point of view women are equal in all measures to men in comparison.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of Judaism.
Some currents of Neopaganism, in particular Wicca, have a ditheistic concept of a single goddess and a single god, who in hieros gamos represent a united whole. Polytheistic reconstructionists focus on reconstructing polytheistic religions, including the various goddesses and figures associated with indigenous cultures.
The term thealogy is sometimes used in the context of the Neopagan Goddess movement, a pun on theology and thea θεά "goddess" intended to suggest a feminist approach to theism.
The Goddess movement is a loose grouping of social and religious phenomena growing out of second-wave feminism, predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1970s, and the metaphysical community as well. Spurred by the perception that women were not treated equitably in many religions, some women turned to a Female Deity as more in tune with their spiritual needs. Education in the Arts became a vehicle for the study of humanitarian philosophers like David Hume at that time. A unifying theme of this diverse movement is the femaleness of Deity (as opposed and contrasted to a patriarchal God).
Goddess beliefs take many forms: some people in the Goddess movement recognize multiple goddesses; some also include gods; others honor what they refer to as "the Goddess," which is not necessarily seen as monotheistic, but is often understood to be an inclusive, encompassing term incorporating many goddesses in many different cultures. The term "the Goddess" may also be understood to include a multiplicity of ways to view deity personified as female, or as a metaphor, or as a process. (Christ 1997, 2003) The term "The Goddess" may also refer to the concept of The One Divine Power, or the traditionally worshipped "Great Goddess" of ancient times.
In the latter part of the 20th century, feminism was influential in the rise of Neopaganism in the United States, and particularly the Dianic tradition. Some feminists find the worship of a goddess, rather than a god, to be consonant with their views. Others are polytheists, and worship a number of goddesses. The collective set of beliefs associated with this is sometimes known as thealogy and sometimes referred to as the Goddess movement. See also Dianic Wicca.
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