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=                      Rosemary_Radford_Ruether                      =
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                            Introduction
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Rosemary Radford Ruether (; 2 November 1936 - 21 May 2022) was an
American Catholic feminist theologian known for her significant
contributions to the fields of feminist theology and ecofeminist
theology. Her teaching and her writings helped establish these areas
of theology as distinct fields of study; she is recognized as one of
the first scholars to bring women's perspectives on Christian theology
into mainstream academic discourse.

Ruether was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and her
own work was influenced by liberation and black theology. She taught
at Howard University for ten years, and later at Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary. Over the course of her career, she wrote on a
wide range of topics, including antisemitism, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, the intersection of feminism and Christianity, and the
climate crisis.

Ruether was an advocate of women's ordination, a movement among
Catholics who affirm women's capacity to serve as priests, despite
official church prohibition. For decades, Ruether served as a board
member and then a member 'emerita' for the abortion rights group
Catholics for Choice. Her public stance on these topics was criticized
by some leaders in the Catholic Church.


Early life and education
==========================
Ruether was born Rosemary Radford on November 2, 1936, in Saint Paul,
Minnesota. She was the youngest of three daughters born to her
parents, Rebecca Cresap Radford (née Ord) and Robert Radford. Her
father, an Episcopalian, worked as a civil engineer. Her mother, a
Catholic, worked as a secretary.

Ruether's father died when she was twelve years old, after which
Ruether and her mother moved to San Diego, California. Ruether
attended several Catholic schools staffed by the Sisters of Providence
from St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, who, in conjunction with her
mother's friend group, offered Ruether a strong feminist and activist
foundation that informed her later work. She pursued an undergraduate
education at Scripps College from 1954 to 1958.

Ruether held a BA in philosophy and religion from Scripps College
(1958), as well as an MA in ancient history (1960) and a PhD in
classics and patristics (1965) from Claremont Graduate School in
Claremont, California. Given her academic focus in the area of
patristics, she wrote her dissertation on Gregory of Nazianzus.


Career
========
Ruether's political and theological commitments sometimes created
conflict between her and the institutions for which she worked. She
lost her first teaching job (1964-1965) and her only position in a
Catholic educational institution--Immaculate Heart College in Los
Angeles, California--due to her pro-birth control and pro-choice
positions. After losing this position, she spent the summer of 1965 in
Mississippi as a civil rights worker before accepting a position at
Howard University, an HBCU.

Ruether was appointed as a professor at Howard University in
Washington, DC, from 1965 to 1976. During her time at Howard, she
chaired the religion department. Despite her radical feminist
theology, Ruether remained in the Catholic Church alongside other
religious activists. Her first book, 'The Church Against Itself'
(1967), criticizes the doctrine of the church and the church's views
of sexuality and reproduction.

Ruether participated in civil rights activism during the 1960s in
Mississippi and Washington, DC. She worked for the Delta Ministry in
Mississippi where she was exposed to the struggles of African American
communities and the realities of racism. She became immersed in black
liberation theology literature during her time of teaching at the
Howard University, School of Religion. She dedicated her time to the
peace movement in Washington, DC, and she was arrested and taken to
jail by police along with other radical Catholics and Protestants
because of her participation in marches and demonstrations.

After a brief stint as a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity
School, Ruether accepted a position at Garrett-Evangelical Theological
Seminary and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She taught
at Garrett-Evangelical for nearly 30 years, from 1976 to 2002, as the
Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology. During her career,
Ruether authored over 40 books and over 600 articles, primarily on the
topics of feminism, eco-feminism, the Bible, and Christianity. She
also wrote several texts on Jewish-Christian relations, including
'Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism,' and on
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

After retiring from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Ruether
became the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific
School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union.

In addition to her academic work, Ruether participated in a number of
organizations at the intersection of justice work, feminism, and
Christianity. In 1977, Ruether became an associate of the Women's
Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP), an American nonprofit
publishing organization that works to increase communication between
women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Additionally, she served as a board member of Catholics for Choice, an
abortion rights advocacy group, and regularly wrote for 'The National
Catholic Reporter' and 'Sojourners'. Ruether was also an advocate of
women's ordination, a movement among Catholics who affirm women's
capacity to serve as priests, despite official church prohibition.


Declining health and death
============================
Ruether experienced a stroke that caused serious injury in 2016. She
and her husband lived at Pilgrim Place, an intentional living
community for seniors in Claremont, California, after her retirement.
Ruether belonged to a women-church group in the community.

Ruether died on May 21, 2022, in a hospital in Pomona, California,
after suffering a long-term illness. She was 85 years old at the time
of her death. Ruether is survived by her three children and two
grandchildren.


                         Feminist theology
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According to Ruether, the exclusion of women from theological academic
and leadership roles has led to the proliferation of male-centric
attitudes and beliefs. Without women invited to contribute to
Christian theological dialogue and practices, women's experiences are
neglected in theological beliefs and traditions. Ruether believed that
classical theology and its traditions exclude women's experiences,
which perpetuates the idea that women are secondary to men.

Ruether believed that feminist theology could expose and change
inherently discriminatory theological systems. She argued that not
only must the female experience be acknowledged and codified in
theological spaces, but the very understanding of things such as
experience and humanity must be reevaluated.

Rather than attempting to replace patriarchal Christianity with
feminist Christianity, Ruether advocated for a multiplicity of
theological perspectives. She celebrated plurality rather than
advocating for a singular, dominating approach to theology. In her
1983 book 'Sexism and God-Talk,' she opened up new Christological
possibilities by posing the famous question, "Can a male savior save
women?"

While Ruether remained in the Catholic Church for her entire life and
career despite her disagreement with foundational doctrines and
ecclesial practices, she continually challenged the Church's positions
and policies. In an article published in 1985 by 'The Christian
Century', Ruether argued, "If the Catholic church can be wrong on
birth control, it can be wrong on anything. If uncertainty exists
about something which the church has taught with its full authority,
then anything it teaches with its full authority may be wrong."

Ruether's work has been influential in the field of feminist theology,
influencing scholars such as Beverly Wildung Harrison, Pauli Murray,
and Kwok Pui Lan.


                           Personal life
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She married Herman J. Ruether, a political scientist, during her last
year of college. In 2002, they co-authored the book 'The Wrath of
Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict'. They had three children together--two daughters and a son.


                         Honors and awards
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In 1975, Ruether's book 'Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots
of Anti-Semitism' was a finalist for the National Book Awards in the
category of Philosophy & Religion. In 1977, Ruether was installed
as the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. This made her the first
woman to hold an endowed chair at the seminary, a position she would
hold until her retirement in 2002. Ruether's graduate students
collaborated to author and publish 'Voices of Feminist Liberation:
Writings in Honor of Rosemary Radford Ruether' in 2012 as a
festschrift in honor of Ruether's 75th birthday.

Ruether received at least fourteen honorary doctorate degrees.
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary later provided a partial list
that spanned ten years and included Denison University, Ohio (1982)
and St. Bernard Seminary, New York (1992). On January 22, 2000,
Ruether received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at
Uppsala University, Sweden. In 2012, Ruether received an honorary
Doctor of Humane Letters (LHD) degree from Whittier College.


                         Selected writings
======================================================================
* 'The Church Against Itself.' New York: 1967, Herder and Herder, ISBN
9780722005040
* 'Gregory of Nazianzus'. Oxford: 1969, Oxford University Press, ISBN
9780198266198
* 'The Radical Kingdom, The Western Experience of Messianic Hope', New
York: Paulist Press',' 1970
* 'Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism'. New
York 1974, Seabury Press, .
* "Courage as a Christian Virtue" in 'Cross Currents', Spring 1983,
8-16,
* 'Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology', Beacon Press
(1983)
* 'Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing',
Harper-Collins (1994) , 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)
* 'Women Healing Earth: Third World Women on Ecology, Feminism, and
Religion.' New York, March 1996, ISBN 978-1570750571
* 'Introducing Redemption in Christian Feminism' (editor), Continuum
(1998)
*Christianity and Ecology, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Dieter T
Hessel, eds, Harvard University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-945454-20-1
* 'Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family', Beacon Press
(2001),
* Fifth chapter of 'Transforming the Faiths of our Fathers: Women who
Changed American Religion', edited by Ann Braude. (2004)
* 'The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict', Augsburg Fortress (2002)
* 'Integrating Ecofeminism Globalization and World Religions', Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2005)
* 'Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History',
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2005, University of California Press.
* 'America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation & Imperial Violence', Equinox
(2007)
* 'Women and Redemption: A Theological History'. Fortress Press.
Minnesota, (2012), ISBN 978-0800629458
* 'My Quests for Hope and Meaning: An Autobiography.' Wipf &
Stock. Oregon (2013), ISBN 978-1620327128
* 'Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century: Technology, Dialogue,
and Expanding Borders' (ed. with Gina Messina-Dysert), Routledge
(2014). .


                          Further reading
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* Emily Leah Silverman, Whitney Bauman, and Dirk Von der Horst, ed.,
'Voices of Feminist Liberation: Celebratory Writings in Honor of
Rosemary Radford Ruether' (London: Equinox Press, 2012).


                           External links
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* Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology - Internet Archive*
Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Jr., Episode # 106, "The Rib
Uncaged: Women in the Church," June 24, 1969,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxdBLDmBT6k


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