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Feminist theology
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Feminist theology
Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Jainism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, 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 clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting patriarchal (male-dominated) imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, studying images of women in the religions' sacred texts, and matriarchal religion.
While there is no specific date to pinpoint the beginning of this movement, its origins can be traced back to the 1960s article, "The Human Situation: A Feminine View", written by Valerie Saiving (Goldstein). Her piece of work questioned theologies written by men for men in a modern perspective to then dismantle what it had created over the years: patriarchal systems that oppress women. After Saiving's work was published, many scholars took up her ideas and elaborated upon them, which built the feminist theology movement further. Grenz and Olson view the steps of feminist theology in threes: first, feminist theologians critique the treatment of women in the past, second, they determine alternative biblical/religious texts that support feminist ideologies, and third, they claim the theology that adheres to such standards, through reclamation, abolishment, and/or revision. Grenz and Olson also mention that 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. This concept is also important when feminist theology is relating to other religions or spiritual connections outside of Christianity.
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 patriarchy.
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.
Carol P. Christ is the author of the widely reprinted essay "Why Women Need the Goddess", which argues in favor of the concept of there having been an ancient religion of a supreme goddess. This essay was presented as the keynote address to an audience of over 500 at the "Great Goddess Re-emerging" conference at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the spring of 1978, and was first published in Heresies: The Great Goddess Issue (1978), pgs. 8–13. Carol P. Christ also co-edited the classic feminist religion anthologies Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality (1989) and Womanspirit Rising (1979/1989); the latter included her essay Why Women Need the Goddess.
The Latter-Day Saint movement is unique among Christian denominations in that it affirms the existence of a Divine Feminine as a part of its core doctrine. The Latter-Day Saint Divine Feminine is called "Heavenly Mother". While Latter-day Saints do not pray to Heavenly Mother, she is considered to be the wife of Heavenly Father and therefore His equal in heaven, according to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"'s description of husbands and wives as equal partners.
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. 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; with its churches and community centers mostly led by women, from the 1880s to today.
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Feminist theology
Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Jainism, Neopaganism, Baháʼí Faith, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, 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 clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting patriarchal (male-dominated) imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, studying images of women in the religions' sacred texts, and matriarchal religion.
While there is no specific date to pinpoint the beginning of this movement, its origins can be traced back to the 1960s article, "The Human Situation: A Feminine View", written by Valerie Saiving (Goldstein). Her piece of work questioned theologies written by men for men in a modern perspective to then dismantle what it had created over the years: patriarchal systems that oppress women. After Saiving's work was published, many scholars took up her ideas and elaborated upon them, which built the feminist theology movement further. Grenz and Olson view the steps of feminist theology in threes: first, feminist theologians critique the treatment of women in the past, second, they determine alternative biblical/religious texts that support feminist ideologies, and third, they claim the theology that adheres to such standards, through reclamation, abolishment, and/or revision. Grenz and Olson also mention that 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. This concept is also important when feminist theology is relating to other religions or spiritual connections outside of Christianity.
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 patriarchy.
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.
Carol P. Christ is the author of the widely reprinted essay "Why Women Need the Goddess", which argues in favor of the concept of there having been an ancient religion of a supreme goddess. This essay was presented as the keynote address to an audience of over 500 at the "Great Goddess Re-emerging" conference at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the spring of 1978, and was first published in Heresies: The Great Goddess Issue (1978), pgs. 8–13. Carol P. Christ also co-edited the classic feminist religion anthologies Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality (1989) and Womanspirit Rising (1979/1989); the latter included her essay Why Women Need the Goddess.
The Latter-Day Saint movement is unique among Christian denominations in that it affirms the existence of a Divine Feminine as a part of its core doctrine. The Latter-Day Saint Divine Feminine is called "Heavenly Mother". While Latter-day Saints do not pray to Heavenly Mother, she is considered to be the wife of Heavenly Father and therefore His equal in heaven, according to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"'s description of husbands and wives as equal partners.
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. 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; with its churches and community centers mostly led by women, from the 1880s to today.