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Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Global Scope in Interfaith Reconciliation Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Sarah Robinson
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s life work demonstrates in books, conferences, and courses her commitment to facilitating dialogue to advance the well-being of women, not as a secular feminist, but as a ...
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Introduction by Theresa A. Yugar and Janice Poss Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Theresa A. Yugar, Janice Poss
Rosemary Radford Ruether (2 November 1936–21 May 2022), feminist foremother, prophet, and empowering voice for women in the Roman Catholic Church and in the theological academy, particularly in the...
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Honoring Rosemary Radford Ruether: Feminism Was Her Liberation Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Theresa A. Yugar
Feminist liberation theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether was a prophetic and progressive voice for women in the Roman Catholic Church. Although feminism was only one aspect of her scholarship, it re...
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The Chispa1 Carrier For Rosemary Radford Ruether Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Renny Golden
Renny Golden, professor emerita from Northeastern Illinois University and Pilgrim Place resident, was a teaching colleague of Rosemary’s for many years while they were in Chicago. She offers a beau...
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Rosemary Reuther and Her Impact on Feminist and Ecofeminist Theology in Latin America Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Ivone Gebara
Ivone Gebara, Brazilian Catholic nun, philosopher, and eco-feminist theologian, writes an insightful and hopeful memoire of their common work together to help save the planet and deconstruct its de...
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Among the Cloud of Witnesses: Rosemary Radford Ruether Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Renee K. Harrison
Harrison offers a tribute to Rosemary Radford Ruether in the light of a host of womanist and feminist scholars who helped shape and inform the scholar and teacher she is today. Although Harrison ha...
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Rosemary Radford Ruether: First Impressions and Lasting Impacts Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Mary Hunt
Rosemary Radford Ruether’s scholarly accomplishments and human achievements are rivaled by few and achieved by virtually no other theologian in recent memory. Hildegard of Bingen might be a competi...
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Rosemary Radford Ruether: Colleague and Friend Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Barbara Troxall
This article outlines my friendship with Rosemary both as a colleague and as a fellow traveler in Pilgrim Place. I remember her hospitality and her humor as well as her amazing scholarship and sist...
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The Sin of Being Human? Christian Theological Response to Mental Illness Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Alison Downie
Although the term mental illness is problematic, it is unavoidable for those most deeply harmed by it. In contrast to some current theological responses to mental illness, fully intersectional resp...
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Holy Spirit Mother, the Baptismal Womb, and the Walesby Tank: Excavating Early Christian Women Baptizers Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Ally Kateusz
Writers starting with Tertullian and the author behind the Didascalia Apostolorum attest to the presence of early Christian women baptizers, as do a variety of later writers. The early Christian tr...
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The Principle and Practice of Mahr in Muslim Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Arshie Showcat
Muslim marriages are essentially a contract entered into by two consenting adults. It emphasizes the need to lay down the terms of the contract and also ensures financial safeguards to women gettin...
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Altarplay: A Technology of the Soul Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Deryn Guest
This article theorises how home altars can support healing, individuation and personal transformation. It is informed by theory pertaining to Jungian sandplay therapy and Donald Winnicott’s ideas a...
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The Western Revival of Goddess Worship Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Téa Nicolae
In a modern society arguably disenchanted with religion, numerous Western women are transfixing their reality by making God in their own image. This compelling phenomenon is known as ‘the Goddess M...
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Trans-Formed by the Spirit: How the Doctrine of Miraculous Conception Reveals Jesus to Be an Intersex Trans Man Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Georgia Day
This article is a queer reading of the doctrine of miraculous conception and an exploration into how applying an intersex lens to these conception texts can liberate an intersex Jesus. In it, I exp...
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Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Dissenter and Her Work Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-12-15 Jane Duran
It is argued that the thought of Lady Jane Grey has received too little attention, and that her name and beliefs need to be resuscitated. The work of Levin, DeLisle and others is alluded to, and it...
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Editorial Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Janet Wootton
Some time in the 1970s, I can remember watching an episode of the BBC Documentary Horizon, a series which brought scientific breakthroughs or debates to the viewing public. It was a must see for a (then) young adult, with a lively enquiring mind! This one was on the theory of continental drift, or plate tectonics, an idea which had been around for quite a long time, but was confirmed in a series of
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Christian Feminist Theology in Pakistan Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Farman Ali, Humaira Ahmad, Ambreen Salahuddin
This study is an effort to determine the status of Christian feminist theology in Pakistan and discusses the issues and challenges of patriarchal control of Church and religious, political, social,...
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Women in Neo-Pentecostal Churches in Nigeria: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, and the Mainline Churches in Contemporary Nigeria Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Adolphus Ekedimma Amaefule
This paper looks, in the first place, at gender issues in Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria. This is especially as captured by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in her novel, America...
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Searching for an Inclusive Approach to Biblical Laws Relating to Women: Observing Innertextual Developments in the Dead Sea Scrolls as an Instructive Tool Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Carmen Palmer
Despite the existence of biblical laws pertaining to women, Cheryl Anderson, in her work Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies, observes that these same laws do not take into account the pers...
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Ritual Sequestration, Genital Cutting, and Hierodulic Servitude: A Triad of Feminist Dilemmas Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Jane Duran
Three areas of rights violation for women and young girls across the globe are examined with an eye toward the specificity of the violation, and possible areas of help. The work of internationalist...
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Fragmented Voices with Guilt and Apologies: Interrogating Narratives on Ordination of Women in Nagaland Churches Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Ilito Achumi
The category ‘women’ is one of the majority members in the Nagaland churches of Northeast India. Institutionalization of associations and churches according to denominations has contributed to the ...
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Reading African-Wise: Exodus 3.1-14 as Interpreted in the Lumpa Church of Alice Lenshina in Zambia Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Jonathan Kangwa
African biblical scholars postulate that biblical interpretation in Africa involves linking biblical texts to African contexts. This means that the African interpreter of a biblical text focuses on...
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Reconciliation as a Feminist Mission: An Analysis of Reconciliation in Cases of Violence Against Women in Indonesia Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Oinike Natalia Harefa
Reconciliation often becomes a superficial term when dealing with cases of violence against women. In several cultures in Indonesia, it is common for reconciliation to be reduced to a retributive p...
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Ministry Among Immigrants at Risk: Women and Children Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-08-27 Grace Ji-Sun Kim
Through its analysis of history, race, and theology, this essay offers a unique and compelling approach to the discussion of ministry among women and child migrants. The critical discussion of Asia...
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Individuality Combined with Entrepreneurial Spirit: Breaking Patriarchal Codes in Prabha Khaitan’s A Life Apart Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-17 Shalini Yadav
Writing about “self” as an autobiography became an elite device in the hands of many Indian women post independence, who wished to write about their lives and exerted strenuously to break the restrictions imposed on them within the “four-walled peripheries” to construct their own identity and exhibit their individuality in various fields such as sports, business, film industry, defense, and in various
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Street Mothers: How Might a Feminist Critique of Christology Impact the Christian Faith of Women on Council Estates in the United Kingdom? Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-17 Sophie Cowan
This article engages feminist critiques of Christology with the views of Christian women living on council estates in the United Kingdom. It explores some of the ways in which the faith of such women connects with and/or contradicts feminist and womanist understandings of Christ. It is demonstrated that Jesus has been thought of in terms of ‘Nan-Nan’, or as a ‘Street Mother’, and that women living
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Disrupting Disruptions: Charting and Challenging Notions of Gender in Philippine Feminist Theologizing Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Rae Sanchez
The growing discipline of feminist theology in Asia and in the world, which involves many Filipinas, entails an increasing attentiveness to gender diversity beyond heteronormative expectations and a broader sense of solidarity among women and others who have experienced exclusion due to gender. An analysis of writings by Philippine feminist theologians Mary John Mananzan, Judette Gallares, and Agnes
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Stirring Being with Grace: A Queer Pneumatological Disruption of Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Gender Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Elizabeth Cable
In this study, I aim to elaborate a constructive pneumatology—seen as through a glass darkly, in contemporary progressive Catholic and queer theologies—that has the power to challenge, and transform, ways of thinking theologically that are profoundly informed by gender essentialism. This effort to disrupt gender essentialism may be framed as part of the ongoing liberationist task—to identify and disrupt
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Irish Nuns and Education in the Anglophone World, 1800–1900 Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Deirdre Raftery, Catriona Delaney
This article provides an account of some of the education provisions by Irish women religious, in the Anglophone world, in the nineteenth century. Although many orders sent Sisters around the globe, to both establish and run schools for English-speaking children, the main focus of this article is on two Irish orders, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Sisters of Mercy
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Trans Issues? Beyond a Hermeneutic of Mutilation Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Judith Tatton-Schiff
This article questions whether the ‘problem’ of trans issues lies more in the binary, patriarchal structures of our society than it does in our bodies. I utilize Marcella Althaus-Reid’s ‘Hermeneutic of Mutilation’, arguing that, much as ‘to give hospitality to our own fragmentations may require sometimes acts of transformations’, we must not support the heteropatriarchal pattern and system as it attempts
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“Gay Bashing” in Sacred Space: Lesbian Feminism and the Rise of Digital Violence Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Laulie Eckeberger
What happens when our digital sacred spaces become violent and incite trauma or trigger reminders of traumatic experiences? This project will delve into these questions as we begin to think about trauma in digital spaces for the Lesbian-Feminist. For example, we scroll through Facebook and see that an uncle has posted a homophobic article. The logical response to this, the response that our spiritual
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Editorial Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Lisa Isherwood
As I sit here in January, there are so many issues pressing upon us both national and international, our current Prime Minister is unable to tell if he is at a party or not and due to his precarious position is telling Whips to exert undue pressure in the shape of bribes and threats, respectively. Meanwhile, this terrible and even unlawful behaviour distracts from families unable to both heat and eat
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Evil in the Twenty-First Century Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-01-23 Jacqueline daCosta
What can we define as evil in the twenty-first century? Paganism had no devil figure, only trickster gods. It was monotheism that personified evil as Satan, although by the mid-twentieth century, Satanism was recognised as an alternative religion with its own churches. Can we point at individuals whose intentions were not diabolical, but the outcome of which had a negative impact? Perhaps such changes
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A Strange Sadness: Margaret Baxter on the Trauma of Conversion Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-01-23 Nathan Shannon
This article seeks to recover a familiar but unappreciated female voice from English Puritanism of the seventeenth century, that of Margaret Baxter. Various challenges to such recovery are examined, most notably the nature of her relationship to her pastor and husband, Richard. Extant literature from Margaret’s hand focuses on the events surrounding her conversion and life-threatening illness shortly
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My Grandmothers Baked Cakes for the Queen of Heaven: A Journey from Judaism to Goddess Spirituality Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-01-23 Jacqueline daCosta
In this article, I trace my story from Jewish ‘war baby’ to thealogian embracing Goddess talk; a search for spirituality, as well as for roots. I explore, in particular, Asherah, whom I accept as the Hebrew Goddess, and I share some of the insights of academics who illuminated my path. I also touch on the latest DNA evidence for the origins of Ashkenazi Jewry and my own search for identity.
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Editorial Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2022-01-23 Beverley Clack
So much has changed over the last 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Covid brought with it death and sadness, and in its wake, it has forced us – sometimes with relief, sometimes with resentment – to think about the way we are living and whether we need to change what we do.
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Book Review: Rage in the Belly: Hunger in the New Testament Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-12 Alison Jasper
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Reconciliating the Relationship Between Christian Churches and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex+ People: The Letter of São Paulo as a Counter Hegemonic Discourse in Times of Religious Conservatisms Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-10 Tainah Biela Dias, Fernanda Marina Feitosa Coelho
The ‘1st Congress Churches and LGBTI+ Community: ecumenical dialogues for respect for diversity’ was held between 19th and 22nd of June 2019, in the city of São Paulo. The Congress was organised by the Parish of the Holy Trinity of the Episcopal Anglican Church in Brazil and Koinonia–Ecumenical Presence in Service. As we consider this congress a historic landmark in the debates concerning religions
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A Nomadic Spirituality in the Dream of the Red Chamber: Seeking the Goddess in an Immanent Process Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-10 Wang Kun
The multicultural work, The Dream of the Red Chamber, posits a field for exploring the interconnection between Confucian interpretations and its intrinsic Goddess narrative. In this article, I examine the reconciliation of the former with the latter. The immanent transcendence in Neo-Confucianism is not enough for interpreting this novel, for covering the question of a natural connection between Vermilion
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Allegory and the Body as Icon: Evelyn Underhill and Barbara Brown Taylor Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-10 Maxine Walker
When faith traditions confront postmodern uncertainties regarding historical liturgical practices, political and cultural ideologies, the self and sacred space, the assurance of truth claims, allegorical readings and interpretations of sites where divine presence is found are equally questioned. Can allegorical interpretations offer a valuable strategy in postmodern understandings for identifying how
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Bleeding Women in Sacred Spaces: Negotiating Theological Belonging in the ‘Pathway’ to Priesthood Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-10 Eve Parker
This article focuses on the theological journeying of women ordinands in the Church of England, who have had to negotiate their belonging in the ‘pathway’ to Priesthood in ordination training. Attention is given to the extent to which the personhood of women is enabled to truly flourish in a theological education system that is dominated by men and predominantly patriarchal and Western theologising
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Book Review: Rage in the Belly: Hunger in the New Testament Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-11-10 Meehyun Chung
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Ukukupukula Pampoto: Cultural Construction of Silence Regarding Gender-Based Violence among Pentecostal Married Women in Zambia Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Mutale Mulenga Kaunda
Currently Pentecostalism has become endemic especially because of the changing landscape of Christianity in Zambia where most Christians have shifted faith allegiance from the mainline Eurocentric missionary founded churches to newer churches with charismatic leaders. The Pentecostal Church has been encouraging women’s empowerment in public spheres while subtly expecting them to submit totally and
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Gender and Sexual Desire Justice in African Christianity Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Chammah J Kaunda, Mutale Mulenga Kaunda
This article explores the nexus of themes of sexual desire, gender and prayer in the Bemba mythology of creation. Approached from Sarah Coakley’s theology of participation in the divine desire, the article utilizes email technique to collect data from African scholars both women and men with an intention to find out their perspectives on the nexus of the entangled themes above as embodied within the
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Editorial Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Janet Wootton
At its best, an issue of an academic journal such as Feminist Theology has a sense of conversation about it. The article authors may never have met, or had any actual conversation with one another (unless the issue arises from a conference), but they have been brought into one ‘room’ by the editorial process, and the issue editor will have engaged with each, in the context of the whole.
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Sacred Subtexts: Depictions of Girls as Christ Figure and Holy Fool in the Films Moana and Whale Rider Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Belinda du Plooy
Christ figures and holy fools are familiar religious symbols often repeated and adapted in film making. They have historically most often been depicted as male, and among the slowly growing body of female filmic christ figures, they are usually depicted as adult White women. In this article, I consider two films, Niki Caro’s Whale Rider and Disney’s Moana, in which young Indigenous girls are depicted
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Identification and Belonging: A Case Study of White German Women Converts to Islam Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Lana Sirri
This study explores the possibilities of identification and belonging in a socio-religious space that contains multiple communal boundaries. It is based on narrated accounts of White Christian German women living in Berlin, Germany, who have converted to Islam. Their shared cultural background with other White German women, their new Islamic religion, and, for some, their intermarriage affiliation
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The Purpose of Evil Was to Survive It: Black and Womanist Rejecting the Cross for Salvation Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Jamall A. Calloway
Taking the Hagar story as the central biblical resource to address the particular plight of Black women—a plight that reckons with patriarchal and White supremacist forces that desire its enclosure—Delores Williams challenges both the traditional understanding of atonement theory which embraces the Cross as salvific and Black liberation theologies’ apocalyptical conceptions of a mighty liberating God
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Appeal to Women’s Experience in Ethics: Lessons from Feminism and the Challenge from Postcolonial Critique Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Lai-Shan Yip
Appeal to women’s experience for moral delineation in theological ethics has been perplexed by the issue of cultural diversity and colonialism as raised by postcolonial critique. This paper aims to examine the debates from Third-World feminism and Christian feminism in dealing with difference and solidarity, leading to the call for contextual analysis and related power mappings. Margaret A. Farley’s
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Queer(y)ing Naga Indigenous Theology Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Inatoli Aye
This article engages Queer Theology in conversation with Naga Indigenous Theology. A Naga folk poem is employed to help navigate the intricacies of indigenous experiences and the questions of sexuality in Naga Indigenous Theology. I do this by engaging both Marcella Althaus-Reid and Wati Longchar in their Liberation Theology and move towards queering Longchar’s theology. Using the hermeneutical lens
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Book Review: The Bible and Sexual Violence Against Men Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Will Moore
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Book Review: Reading the Magnificat in Australia: Unsettling Engagements Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-09-01 Lisa Isherwood
example where Greenough’s work reaches the climax of its poignancy. The identification of Jesus as a victim of sexual violence is entirely convincing and holds importance for Christians who can resonate with such experiences, even if there are limitations with such an approach which Greenough acknowledges (p. 69). Nevertheless, these fresh interpretations and interrogations of these scriptural passages
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Theological Reinterpretation of “Christology of Water” from Feng Shui Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Hyun Mi Kang
This article presents the “Christology of Water” from Feng Shui cosmology, which promotes liberating women and nature from the oppression perpetrated against them by contemporary Korean churches, which have sexism and eco-antipathy at their heart. The presentation of the “Christology of Water” from Feng Shui envisions a new eco-feminist theological solution to the critique of patriarchies and anthropocentricism
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Women Healing the Globe, Preserving the Tibetan Plateau Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Janice L. Poss
The Tibetan Plateau’s Permafrost is melting at an alarming rate. Six of the world’s major rivers are sourced in the Tibetan Himalayas that are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the earth. If the temperature of the region continues to increase, the rivers will dry up and the earth will warm at an even faster rate. Buddha Yeshe Tsogyal (ye shes mTsho rgyal) (757–817 CE), long considered the Mother
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Ecofeminist Theologies in the Age of Climate Crisis Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Heather Eaton
A few decades ago, ecofeminist historical efforts provided decisive revelations and analyses of the historical entanglements and parallel oppressions of women and nature: a women/nature nexus. Ecofeminism(s) are experiencing a resurgence, with fresh voices in new contexts, and addressing a wide range of concerns. It is encouraging that the relevance of the intersections of gender/nature and feminism
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Sonic Metaphors: Music, Sound, and Ecofeminist Theology Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Elizabeth Ursic
This article explores the relationship between music and ecofeminist theology and investigates how music and sound can advance the development of ecofeminist thought. On a physical level, the act of breathing connects humankind with the earth’s atmosphere and the element of air produces music and sound. On a theological level, traditional church teachings about the power and danger of music have reflected
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Ecofeminist Theology: Intersectional Justice and Plumwood’s Philosophical Animism Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Kimberly Carfore
The multi-faceted ecological crisis—combining problems of ecology, society, and religion—is tied to the ideologies implicit in Western thinking. In this essay, I outline an ecofeminist theology which addresses how the current ecological crisis we face—including but not limited to, climate change, mass species extinction, ocean acidification, the rise in wildfires and superstorms, glacial melt, pollution—are
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Editorial Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Lisa Isherwood
Like so many others, during 2020 Britain and Ireland School of Feminist Theology (BISFT) had its planned summer school cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. However, we are delighted to say the keynotes and seminar contributors to that summer school still produced their papers, which form the body of this issue. It seems quite fitting that this is an issue addressing eco-issues largely from a feminist
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Doing Dirty Theology: How Ensoiled Humans Participate in the Flourishing of All Earthlings Feminist Theology Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Terry Biddington
Traditional theological ideas, language and imagery tend to take their cue and inspiration from the Beyond: from heaven; the transcendent realm and all that is ‘above us’ that we might inspire to attain. But, given that all life arises from and is dependent upon the soil/earth, what possibilities might exist for new ‘ensoiled’ forms of thinking and practice? We are all earthlings and groundlings and