Chapter 1

Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether

and Feminist Theology

What does it mean to be human in God’s image?

ªLooking Ahead:
Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936–) is a Catholic
theologian whose feminist theology seeks to
uncover, understand, and undo the many forms of
oppression—especially sexism—seen in our world.
In her theology, Ruether questions the patriarchal
nature of traditional theology—that is, theology
primarily written by men for men. Notice in her
work how this theme is explained and how it
informs her strong claims for a theology written by
women for women.

The opening chapters of the Bible introduce us to the narra-

tive world that we will explore throughout our present inves-
tigation. The theologian Karl Barth once asked, “What sort of
house is it to which the Bible is the door? What sort of country
is spread before our eyes when we throw the Bible open?”1
Barth’s own reply was that we enter a “strange new world.”
The opening chapters of Genesis seem to confirm Barth’s
suggestion. The Bible opens with a pair of creation stories
(1:1–2:4, 2:4-25). In the first, a majestic God creates the world
by command alone (“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and
there was light.”) in an orderly six-day progression from
chaos to order, concluding with a seventh day of rest. In the

1
2 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

second story, God is portrayed in a more anthropomorphic

fashion. God forms a man from the clay of the earth and
plants a garden in Eden. In this garden stand various trees,
among them the tree of knowledge of good and evil and,
at the center of the garden, the tree of life. God forms the
various wild animals, birds, and cattle and completes the
creation by forming a woman from the man’s rib.
In Genesis 3, the second creation story takes an even
stranger turn. A talking serpent tempts the woman to eat the
forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, and she shares
the fruit with the man. In the course of an afternoon stroll
through the garden, the Lord learns of the couple’s disobedi-
ence. After punishing the serpent, the woman, and the man,
the Lord banishes them from the garden, denying them access
to the tree of life. Cast east of Eden, the man and woman enter
an uncertain world of hostility, toil, and death.
In these opening chapters of the Bible, we confront some
of the most fundamental questions of human existence: Who
is God? Who are we? What is this world in which we live?
For nearly two millennia, Christian thinkers have drawn on
the available religious, philosophical, scientific, and literary
traditions to articulate their understanding of God, humans,
and the world. It is fitting, then, that we pair the opening
chapters of Genesis with a theologian who has dedicated her
professional career to challenging many of the deeply held
traditional Christian beliefs about the nature of God, the
identity of humans, and the structure of society. Rosemary
Radford Ruether’s work has generated vigorous debate and
passionate responses of both support and opposition. Our
study of Ruether’s Sexism and God-Talk focuses on the ques-
tion, What does it mean to be human in God’s image?

Biography of Rosemary Radford Ruether

Ruether deliberately allows her own academic training
and research, personal life experience, and participation in
various social causes to direct the course and content of her
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 3

writings. She was born in 1936. Her father was an Anglican

and her mother a Catholic.2 She attended Scripps College
in Claremont, California. Reflecting on her undergraduate
experience, Ruether writes, “Those years of education also
laid a solid base of historical consciousness, of awareness of
the whole Western historical experience and a methodology
for expanding that awareness that continues to undergird
the way I ask and answer questions.”3
As Ruether completed her graduate work and began to
raise a family with her husband, Herbert, the United States
was becoming more deeply involved in the war in Vietnam,
and at home the civil rights movement was making strides.
The bishops at the Second Vatican Council were updating
the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church,
but the controversy concerning the use of artificial contra-
ception continued to spark dissent among church mem-
bers. The civil rights movement and the process of renewal
within the Roman Catholic Church, “the one questioning
American society and the other questioning the Catholic
church,” writes Ruether, “were the matrix in which my
theology developed. From my first writings I became con-
cerned with the interconnection between theological ideas
and social practice.”4
In 1965, Ruether joined the faculty of the School of
Religion of Howard University in Washington, DC, and
“in the late sixties . . . began formal research on attitudes
toward women in the Christian tradition.”5 In 1976,
Ruether moved to Garrett-Evangelical Seminary near
Chicago, where she spent the bulk of her career. She is
currently teaching at the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley, California. Over the course of her career,
she has tackled questions of “racism, religious bigotry,
especially anti-semitism, sexism, class hierarchy, coloni-
alism, militarism, and ecological damage,” but she has
earned the reputation of being “the most widely-read
and influential articulator of the . . . feminist movement
in theology.”6
4 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

Ruether’s Sexism and God-Talk

The first creation story in Genesis (1:1–2:4) contains one
of the most important elements of a Christian theological
anthropology (a Christian understanding of what it means
to be a human person): Humans are created in the image of
God. The question, What does it mean to be human created
in God’s image? serves as the lens through which we exam-
ine Ruether’s contribution to contemporary theology.
Ruether begins by affirming the traditional Christian
view of humanity: Humans are created in the image of
God, yet are fallen, sinful creatures.

Christian theological anthropology recognizes a dual

structure in its understanding of humanity. . . . His-
torically human nature is fallen, distorted, and sinful.
Its original and authentic nature and potential have
become obscured. The imago dei, or image of God, rep-
resents this authentic humanity united with God. It is
remanifest as Christ to reconnect us with our original
humanity. The question for feminist theology is how
this theological dualism of imago dei/fallen Adam con-
nects with sexual duality, or humanity as male and
female.7

The nontraditional dimension of Ruether’s theology is

that the sinful, fallen world is one characterized by patri-
archy, by which she “means not only the subordination of
females to males, but the whole structure of Father-ruled
society: aristocracy over serfs, masters over slaves, kings
over subjects, radical overlords over colonized people.”8
Ruether asserts that the traditional teachings on theo-
logical anthropology have perpetuated a distorted, patri-
archal vision of human nature. The tendency has been
“to correlate femaleness with the lower part of the human
nature in a hierarchical scheme of mind over body, reason
over passions.”9 Coupled with this is the persistent claim
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 5

that Eve caused the Fall and that, consequently, women

must now bear the punishment for her offense. “Within
history,” Ruether writes, “woman’s subjugation is both the
reflection of her inferior nature and the punishment for her
responsibility for sin.”10 As a consequence, patriarchy is
believed to be “the natural order” or “the will of God.”
While the dominant tradition in Christianity has preserved
and promoted the patriarchal view of humanity, Ruether sees
three marginalized traditions as offering an egalitarian view.
First, the eschatological feminism of early Christianity, found
also in the theology of the Shakers and the Quakers, viewed
the church as anticipating the final redemption of human-
ity and restoration to its original equality. While the larger
social world may operate according to patriarchal rules, the
church is governed by the countercultural vision of the equal-
ity of men and women. Second, liberal feminism, which arose
during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, argued for
the equal rights of all human beings, regardless of gender.
Unlike eschatological feminism, the focus is on transforming
the social, political, and economic institutions of this world.
Third, the many forms of romantic feminism see masculinity
and femininity as equal yet complementary dimensions of
the human personality.
Ruether argues that we need to find a “creative synthe-
sis” between liberalism and romanticism. She advocates
the equality of persons, regardless of gender, race/
ethnicity, or class, but hesitates to embrace the view that
men and women have equal yet complementary natures.
For this reason, Ruether does not fully endorse the use
of the category of androgyny in some recent feminist
writings.

Androgyny has been used in recent feminist thought

to express the human nature that all persons share.
Androgyny refers to possession of both male and females
of both halves of the psychic capacities that have been
6 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

traditionally separated as masculinity and femininity.

The word androgyny is misleading, however, since it
suggests that males and females possess both “mas-
culine” and “feminine” sides to their psychic capacity.
The term thus continues to perpetuate the ideas that
certain psychic attributes are to be labeled masculine
and others are to be labeled feminine and that humans,
by integrating these “masculine” and “feminine” sides
of themselves, become “androgynous.”11

All humans, contends Ruether, are called to integrate

the rational and relational capacities. “We need to affirm
not the confusing concept of androgyny but rather that all
humans possess a full and equivalent human nature and
personhood, as male and female.”12 While Ruether stresses
the commonality of the essential human nature of both men
and women, other thinkers differentiate between women’s
nature and men’s nature.
This debate over whether men and women have dif-
ferent natures is one of the most intriguing elements in the
current study of theological anthropology. The theologian
Serene Jones poses the question in the following manner:
“Is being a ‘woman’ the product of nature or nurture?
Put another way, does ‘womanhood’ express an inborn,
natural female disposition or follow from socially learned
behavior?”13 The nature-nurture debate asks whether our
personalities result from nature (our genetic or biological
makeup) or nurture (the influence of our family, culture, or
personal experience).
Most thinkers would argue that both have a determina-
tive role in our development, but in the context of feminist
thought, the question centers on the issue of gender. Is it
true to say that women are more nurturing and intuitive
than men? If so, is that a result of socialization, evolution,
or biology? Do women and men have different psychologi-
cal dispositions that result in them having fundamentally
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 7

different views of human relationships, concepts of moral-

ity, and approaches in spirituality?
The role of gender in human identity and social roles
extends to debates regarding women’s ordination in Roman
Catholic circles to competing theories of child development
in modern psychology. It demonstrates the centrality of
the concept of imago Dei to Christian thought and practice
yet indicates, as well, the wide-ranging importance of the
question.
The concept of the imago Dei is the basis for Ruether’s
account of the desired state of affairs toward which women
and men should strive. This future state of personal integra-
tion and social reconstruction represents the realization of
the potential with which humans were originally endowed
when they were created in the image of God. Where patri-
archy enforces separation between supposedly manly and
womanly behavior or social roles, feminism calls for inte-
gration: personal or psychic integration of rationality and
relationality and social integration that breaks down bar-
riers between men and women. In this way, we reconnect
with the imago Dei and more fully recapture the human
potential intended by God at the creation.14

Ruether’s Feminist Theology

Ruether describes her theological project as an examination
of the interconnection between theological ideas and social
practice. In broad terms, Ruether sees ingrained patterns of
patriarchal social thought and practice being legitimated
by reference to scriptural and traditional sources that them-
selves express this patriarchy. To break this vicious cycle,
theologians working today need to recover ideas that were
marginalized or suppressed from mainline Christianity
and to reassert the prophetic tradition that challenges the
status quo. In this way, they can construct a theology that
moves us away from patriarchy to an egalitarian vision for
8 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

women and men in both the church and the world. An

assessment of Ruether’s theology requires that we look at
both poles in this position: her theological ideas and her
social analysis.
Biblical writings are regarded by Christians as reli-
able means through which God has communicated to
them. Many a theological controversy has been spawned
over the question of how exactly Scripture conveys God’s
revelation (literally, the unveiling of God) or in what that
revelation consists. Essentially, however, the problem is
knowing what comes from God (and therefore should
be the standard for Christian belief and action) and what
comes from humans (and therefore can be changed).
What, then, is Ruether’s own understanding of rev-
elation, and how does Scripture function as a source of
God’s revelation?

Ruether on Revelation and Scripture

Ruether states, “By revelatory we mean breakthrough expe-
riences beyond ordinary consciousness that provide inter-
pretive symbols illuminating the whole of life.”15 By this
definition, revelation is understood primarily to be experi-
ence, not the writings in the Bible or church doctrine. More
specifically, revelatory experience consists of breakthrough
moments, in which we arrive at a new understanding of
our lives.
Scripture and church life function as the customary
means though which most Christians connect with that
revelatory experience, but Scripture and church life can
also block that experience. When this occurs, the idea
that is promoted by either the Bible or the church must
be reworked. The experience is what is most important.
Scripture and church life are primary connections to that
Christian revelatory experience, but ultimately, they are
subject to reinterpretation or alteration.
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 9

Ruether sees recurring episodes in Christian history in

which the original revelatory experience is domesticated by
the community that transmits it. That community defines
its content and saps it of its original power. The history of
determining the canon (the list of accepted books of the
Bible) illustrates for Ruether this deterioration of revelation
into rigid codification. Church teachers and leaders desig-
nate which writings are accepted as revelatory and which
are considered heretical or less inspired than others. She
writes, “In the process the controlling group marginalizes
and suppresses other branches of the community, with
their texts and lines of interpretation. The winning group
declares itself the privileged line of true (orthodox) inter-
pretation. Thus a canon of Scripture is established.”16 In
other instances, church members believe their leaders are
out of touch with the spirit of the original revelatory expe-
rience. This sparks either a reform movement within the
community or a drive to break away from the dominant
authority.
Given Ruether’s insistence that the original revelatory
experience can be muted or suppressed by controlling
authorities, how can we identify what is truly God’s rev-
elation and not human manipulation of God’s message?
Ruether proposes the following test for discerning God’s
revelation: “The critical principle of feminist theology is
the promotion of the full humanity of women. . . . Theo-
logically speaking, whatever diminishes or denies the
full humanity of women must be presumed not to reflect
the divine or an authentic relation to the divine.”17 Any
church practice or belief that supports patriarchy or
domination is judged, therefore, not to be in accordance
with the original revelatory experience of liberation and
equality.
Ruether applies this norm for revelation to the Bible
and is quite willing to concede that not all elements of
the biblical tradition are part of the “usable tradition” for
10 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

contemporary theology. She states a clear preference for

the prophetic tradition and its willingness to speak truth
to power. Scriptural texts or interpretations that scapegoat
women for the existence of evil in the world, that do not
promote egalitarian understandings of the human person,
or that confine women to certain social roles are to be
rejected. “Feminist readings of the Bible can discern a norm
within Biblical faith by which the Biblical texts themselves
can be criticized. To the extent to which Biblical texts reflect
this normative principle, they are regarded as authoritative.
On this basis many aspects of the Bible are to be frankly set
aside and rejected.”18
In her address to the American Academy of Religion
on the future of feminist theology, Ruether restated many
of her theological positions regarding revelation and
Scripture, as well as her conviction that contemporary
theologians need to continue to address the problem of
patriarchy.

The community of the good news against patriarchy

needs the courage of its convictions, the confident
trust that they are indeed in communion with the
true foundations of reality, the true divine ground of
Being, when they struggle against patriarchy, despite
all claims of authority. This faith lies first of all not in
the Church, its tradition, including Scripture. The patri-
archal distortion of all tradition, including Scripture,
throws feminist theology back upon the primary intui-
tions of religious experience itself, namely, the belief in
a divine foundation of reality which is ultimately good,
which does not wish evil nor create evil, but affirms
and upholds our autonomous personhood as women,
in whose image we are made.19

In this excerpt of Ruether’s address, we find a restate-

ment of the priority of revelatory religious experience, the
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 11

egalitarian vision grounded in the biblical understanding of

all humans as created in the image of God, and the need to
critically evaluate all appeals to Scripture and tradition for
patriarchal presuppositions.

Assessments of Ruether’s
Sexism and God-Talk
Ruether’s critics charge that her approach does not provide
adequate standards by which to judge competing claims of
truth. If there is a “patriarchal distortion” in both Scripture
and church pronouncements, then is the only remaining
reliable source of God’s revelation the original revelatory
experience? That seems to make the hard work of assess-
ing the truth of a theological statement a highly subjective
enterprise. Is this assigning experience more authority than
it rightly deserves in the exposition and defense of certain
theological positions over others?
The theologians Ed. L. Miller and Stanley Grenz contend
the following:

The heart of the debate over feminist theology lies in

its appeal to the feminist consciousness as its highest
authority, as well as the use of women’s experience to
determine what is and what is not normative in Scrip-
ture and the Christian tradition. Critics fear that if we
draw our “critical principle” solely from the conscious-
ness of a particular group—such as women—we have
effectively eliminated any other criterion for engaging
in self-criticism. As a result, feminist theologians run
the risk of merely replacing an old ideology with a
new one.20

Other critics of Reuther’s work fear that the Christian

identity of feminist thought is being endangered when
experience is given priority over Scripture and tradition.
The theologian Linda Hogan voices the following concern:
12 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

To what extent can a theologian who gives priority to

women’s experiences and [practice] over against texts
and traditions, considered to be foundational and
thereby preeminent, be considered Christian? Would
not the identity of Christianity be too fragmented if
each group claimed priority for their experiences, over
Scripture and tradition, and yet called themselves
Christian? Is there not a core which must remain,
regardless of experience, if one wishes to call oneself
Christian?21

Hogan’s concerns are a sampling of other similar

questions raised by Ruether’s approach to revelation and
Scripture: Are scriptural teachings and traditional church
practices hopelessly patriarchal? If so, what source replaces
them in a theology that identifies itself as Christian? Are
there some popular scriptural interpretations or church
teachings that are only minimally corroded by patriarchy?
Should traditions deemed heretical by the early church be
incorporated into contemporary theology? Who has the
authority to offer definitive and binding judgments on such
matters?

The Future of Feminist Christian Theology

The feminist theologian Anne E. Carr identifies three major
emphases in contemporary feminist theology. The first is a
“critique of the past,” including both Scripture and writings
of influential Christian thinkers.22 This would include
Old Testament passages placing responsibility for sin
squarely on the shoulders of women and New Testament
passages that command women to be silent in the churches
(1 Corinthians 14:34). There are, as well, a litany of passages
from major theologians in the early, medieval, and modern
ages that reflect various patriarchal points of view.
“Second on the agenda of Christian feminist theology,”
writes Carr, “is the recovery of the lost history of women in
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 13

the Christian tradition.”23 The work of the New Testament

scholar and feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
represents this type of undertaking. In her work In Memory
of Her, Schüssler Fiorenza takes as her starting point the
unnamed woman in the gospel who anoints Jesus in
Bethany. Jesus tells his disciples, “Truly I tell you, wher-
ever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world,
what she has done will be told in remembrance of her”
(Mark 14:9). Despite this pronouncement by Jesus, writes
Schüssler Fiorenza, “the woman’s prophetic sign-action did
not become a part of the gospel knowledge of Christians.
Even her name is lost to us. . . . The name of the betrayer is
remembered, but the name of the faithful disciple is forgot-
ten because she was a woman.”24
Carr describes the third task of feminist theology as “revi-
sioning Christian categories in ways that takes seriously the
equality and experience of women.”25 The central Christian
doctrine that is refashioned is the exclusive use of mascu-
line language referring to God. The theologian Elizabeth A.
Johnson asserts, “Feminist theological analysis makes clear
that the tenacity with which the patriarchal symbol of God
is upheld is nothing less than violation of the first com-
mandment of the decalogue, the worship of an idol.”26
Relating these three tasks to the question of theological
anthropology, we can begin to see the specific contributions
feminism has made to contemporary theology. In terms of
the first task, the theologian Mary Ann Hinsdale writes,

Critique of malestream theological anthropology has

been a constant feature of feminist theology since the
late 1960s. In terms of a “corrective,” feminist theologi-
cal anthropology has always insisted on more than a
remedial inclusion of women in patriarchal theologi-
cal reflection; rather, it has been concerned to lift up
“women’s voice” not simply as critic, but as a shaper of
theological anthropology.27
14 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

In terms of the retrieval of lost history, some thinkers turn

to marginalized or suppressed traditions about the human
person within mainstream Christianity, while others look
outside the Christian tradition. This raises the question of
how deeply patriarchal Christianity is. Some thinkers have
concluded that Christianity is inherently patriarchal and
thus no longer identify themselves as Christians. “Other
feminists,” writes Ruether, “wish to affirm the possibility
of feminist theology within the Judeo-Christian tradition.
They seek to uncover the more fundamental meaning of
concepts of God, Christ, human personhood, and sin and
redemption that can criticize the deformation of these con-
cepts as tools of male domination.”28
The third task of the feminist theologian is to propose
new, richer understandings of the Christian message. As
the theologian Michelle A. Gonzalez notes,

For centuries the doctrine of the imago Dei has been

misinterpreted to benefit male authority and render
women subservient in their “defective” humanity. A
critical feminist reconstruction counters centuries of
misreading the Christian tradition, arguing that both
men and women reflect the divine image fully, This
theological anthropology presents an egalitarian vision
of humanity that reflects the relational, trinitarian God
in whose image we were created.29

The current discussion within feminist Christian circles

concerns what form this theological reconstruction should
take.

Conclusion
Ruether insists, “Feminist theology needs to affirm the
God of Exodus, of liberation and new being.”30 In the
next chapter, we will examine how another theologian,
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 15

Gustavo Gutiérrez, also affirms the need for contemporary

Christians to heed the call of “the God of Exodus.”

Discussion Questions
1. What impact has the feminist movement had on
college-age women and men today?
2. What does it mean to say that humans are created in
“the image of God”? What does it mean to say that
humans are “fallen”?
3. Is Scripture God’s revelation? Does Scripture reflect
patriarchal patterns of thought? What implications for
Christian theology follow from your answer?
4. Do men and women have different natures? Are
women by nature more nurturing? Are men by nature
more aggressive?
5. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Ruether’s
theology?

Notes
1. Karl Barth, “The Strange New World within the Bible,” in
The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1957), p. 28.
2. James J. Bacik, Contemporary Theologians (Chicago: Thomas
More Press, 1989), p. 180.
3. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Disputed Questions (Nashville,
Tenn.: Abingdon, 1982), pp. 17–18.
4. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “The Development of My
Theology,” Religious Studies Review 15, no. 1 (1989): 1.
5. Ruether, Disputed Questions, p. 118.
6. Ed. L. Miller and Stanley J. Grenz, Fortress Introduction to
Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), p. 162.
7. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a
Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), p. 93.
8. Ibid., p. 61.
9. Ibid., p. 93.
10. Ibid., p. 95.
16 WRESTLING WITH THE QUESTIONS

11. Ibid., pp. 110–111.

12. Ibid., p. 111.
13. Serene Jones, Feminist Theory and Christian Theology
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), p. 23.
14. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, p. 113
15. Ibid., p. 13.
16. Ibid., p. 14.
17. Ibid., pp. 18–19.
18. Ibid., p. 23
19. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “The Future of Feminist
Theology in the Academy,” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 53 (1985): 710.
20. Miller and Grenz, Contemporary Theology, p. 175.
21. Linda Hogan, From Women’s Experience to Feminist Theology
(Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), p. 107.
22. Anne E. Carr, Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and
Women’s Experience (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), p. 7.
Italics in original.
23. Carr, Transforming Grace, p. 8. Italics in original.
24. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York:
Crossroad, 1983), p. xiii.
25. Carr, Transforming Grace, p. 8. Italics in original.
26. Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in
Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 39.
27. Mary Ann Hinsdale, “Heeding the Voices,” in Ann O’Hara
Graff, ed., In the Embrace of God (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
1995), p. 23. Italics in original.
28. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Feminist Theology,” in Alan
Richardson and John Bowden, eds., The Westminster Dictionary of
Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 211.
29. Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2007), p. 168.
30. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, p. 70.

Suggested Readings
For a short introduction to Christian feminist theology, see Anne
M. Clifford, Introducing Feminist Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis
Books, 2001). For a helpful annotated bibliography, see Natalie
K. Watson, Feminist Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerd-
 Creation: Rosemary Radford Ruether and Feminist Theology 17

mans, 2003). For a discussion of feminist theological anthropol-

ogy, see Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God’s Image (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2007). For a discussion of theological method
in feminist theology, see Anne E. Carr, “The New Vision of Femi-
nist Theology,” in Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ed., Freeing Theol-
ogy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).
For a brief overview of Ruether’s theology, see Mary Hembrow
Snyder, “Rosemary Radford Ruether,” in Donald W. Musser
and Joseph L. Price, eds., A New Handbook of Christian Theologians
(Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1996). For a scholarly engage-
ment with Ruether’s theology, see Nicholas John Ansell, “The
Women Will Overcome the Warrior”: A Dialogue with the Christian/
Feminist Theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether (Lanham, Md.:
University Press of America, 1994). Also helpful is the retro-
spective on Ruether’s theology in Religious Studies Review 15,
no. 1 (1989).