Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, 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.
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christianity, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. He was against literary critics who defined idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, and thought that Swedenborg, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, and Hans Christian Andersen were all "understood" far too quickly by "scholars."
Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective. More narrowly it is the study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind.
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics. Because of his profound effect on subsequent Christian thought, he is often called the "Father of Modern Liberal Theology" and is considered an early leader in liberal Christianity. The neo-orthodoxy movement of the twentieth century, typically seen to be spearheaded by Karl Barth, was in many ways an attempt to challenge his influence. As a philosopher he was a leader of German Romanticism. Schleiermacher is considered the most important Protestant theologian between John Calvin and Karl Barth.
Albrecht Benjamin Ritschl was a German Protestant theologian.
Robert William Jenson was a leading American Lutheran and ecumenical theologian. Prior to his retirement in 2007, he spent seven years as the director of the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was the co-founder of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and is known for his two-volume Systematic Theology published between 1997 and 1999.
Mary Daly was an American radical feminist philosopher and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years. Once a practicing Roman Catholic, she had disavowed Christianity by the early 1970s. Daly retired from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.
Christian existentialism is a theo-philosophical movement which takes an existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) who is widely regarded as the father of existentialism.
In Christianity, Neo-orthodoxy or Neoorthodoxy, also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology, was a theological movement developed in the aftermath of the First World War. The movement was largely a reaction against doctrines of 19th century liberal theology and a reevaluation of the teachings of the Reformation. Karl Barth is the leading figure associated with the movement. In the U.S., Reinhold Niebuhr was a leading exponent of neo-orthodoxy. It is unrelated to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Liberal Christianity, also known as liberal theology and historically as Christian Modernism, is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by taking into consideration modern knowledge, science and ethics. It emphasizes the importance of reason and experience over doctrinal authority. Liberal Christians view their theology as an alternative to both atheistic rationalism and theologies based on traditional interpretations of external authority, such as the Bible or sacred tradition.
Heinrich Emil Brunner (1889–1966) was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Along with Karl Barth, he is commonly associated with neo-orthodoxy or the dialectical theology movement.
Johann Georg Wilhelm Herrmann was a Lutheran German theologian.
Christian feminism is a school of Christian theology which uses the viewpoint of a Christian to promote and understand morally, socially, and spiritually the equality of men and women. Christian theologians argue that contributions by women and acknowledging women's value are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. Christian feminists are driven by the belief that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex and race, but created all humans to exist in harmony and equality regardless of those factors. On the other hand, Christian egalitarianism is used for those advocating gender equality and equity among Christians but do not wish to associate themselves with the feminist movement.
Rosemary Radford Ruether was an American feminist scholar and Roman Catholic 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. She was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and her own work was influenced by liberation and black theologies. 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.
Karl Barth's views on Mary agreed with much Roman Catholic dogma but disagreed with the Catholic veneration of Mary. Barth, a leading 20th-century theologian, was a Reformed Protestant. Aware of the common dogmatic tradition of the early Church, Barth fully accepted the dogma of Mary as the Mother of God. Through Mary, Jesus belongs to the human race. Through Jesus, Mary is Mother of God.
Isabel Carter Heyward is an American feminist theologian and priest in the Episcopal Church, the province of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the United States. In 1974, she was one of the Philadelphia Eleven, eleven women whose ordinations eventually paved the way for the recognition of women as priests in the Episcopal Church in 1976.
Tina Beattie is a British Christian theologian, writer and broadcaster.
Sallie McFague was an American feminist Christian theologian, best known for her analysis of how metaphor lies at the heart of how Christians may speak about God. She applied this approach, in particular, to ecological issues, writing extensively on care for the Earth as if it were God's "body". She was Distinguished Theologian in Residence at the Vancouver School of Theology, British Columbia, Canada.
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher whose influence and reception varied widely and may be roughly divided into various chronological periods. Reactions were anything but uniform, and proponents of various ideologies attempted to appropriate his work quite early.
Erin Gabrielle White is a feminist philosopher and theologian. As an author she contributed significantly to feminist scholarship in Australia. She was the founder of the Sydney Women-Church Group and one of the founding editors of Women-Church: an Australian journal of feminist studies in religion.
