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Rosemary Radford Ruether was born in 1936 in Georgetown, Texas, to a Roman Catholic mother and Episcopal father. She has reportedly described her upbringing as free-thinking and humanistic as opposed to oppressive.[1] Ruether’s father died when she was 12 and afterwards Ruether and her mother moved to California.
She is married to the political scientist Herman Ruether. They have three children and live in California.[2]
Academic activities
Ruether holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Scripps College (1958), an M.A. in Ancient History (1960) and a Ph.D. in Classics and Patristics (1965) from Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California.
She currently is Visiting Professor of Feminist Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. She formerly was Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union, and also taught at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.[3] Ruether is the author of many books on feminism, the Bible and Christianity.
She has for thirty years been considered a pioneer in the area of feminist theology in North America, with a particular focus in modern feminist theology and liberation theology, especially in Palestine and Latin America. She has also been an outspoken critic of war since the Vietnam era and continues this work today.
Viewpoints
Ruether describes herself as an “ecofeminist” and has referred to God in the feminine as “Gaia” (however, she noted in July 2008 that a critic “accused me of teaching that ‘God is Gaia,’ a view which I do not take” [4]). Ruether is an advocate of women’s ordination. In 1984 she was one of 97 theologians and religious persons who signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion, calling for religious pluralism and discussion within the Catholic Church regarding the Church’s position on abortion.[5] Since 1985 Ruether has served as a board member for the pro-choice group “Catholics for Choice” (CFC).
In 2005 Ruether explained to an audience at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles her view that “Christianity is riddled by hierarchy and patriarchy“. This created a social order in which chaste women on their wedding night were “in effect, raped by young husbands whose previous sexual experience came from exploitative relationships with servant women and prostitutes. . . . Modern societies have sought to change this situation, allowing women education, legal autonomy, paid employment and personal freedom. But the sexual morality of traditional puritanical patriarchal Christianity has never been adequately rethought.” [6]
She is a signatory to the 2004 9/11 Truth Statement, which called for a “Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11”.[7]
Writings
- The Church Against Itself, New York, 1967, Herder and Herder.
- Gregory of Nazianzus. Oxford: 1969, Oxford University Press.
- Faith and fratricide: the theological roots of anti-Semitism. New York 1974, Seabury Press, ISBN 978-0-8164-2263-0.
- Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, Beacon Press (1993) ISBN 0-8070-1205-X
- Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing, Harper-Collins (1994) ISBN 978-0-06-066967-6, ASIN 0-06-066967-5
- In Our Own Voices: Four Centuries of American Women’s Religious Writing (ed. with Rosemary Skinner Keller), Harper-Collins (1996) ISBN 0-06-066840-7
- Introducing Redemption in Christian Feminism (editor), Continuum (1998) ISBN 1-85075-888-3
- The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Augsburg Fortress (2002) ISBN 0-8006-3479-9
- Integrating Ecofeminism Globalization and World Religions”, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2005) ISBN 0-7425-3529-0
- Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23146-5
- America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation & Imperial Violence, Equinox (2007) ISBN 1-84553-158-2
References
- ^ ‘People’ section of website of Boston University
- ^ Website of Claremont School of Theology
- ^ Website of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
- ^ Website of the National Catholic Reporter
- ^ Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Cantlon, Marie (2006). Encyclopedia of women and religion in North America. 3. Indiana University Press. pp. 1104–1106. ISBN 0-253-34688-6.
- ^ Radford, Rosemary Ruether. Conscience magazine, Jun 22, 2003, Sexual Illiteracy [1]
- ^ Website of the 911 Truth Movement
External links
- Works by or about Rosemary Radford Ruether in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Sexism and God-Talk: Toward A Feminist Theology