Rosemary Radford Ruether | |
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| Born | Rosemary Radford (1936-11-02)November 2, 1936 Saint Paul,Minnesota, US |
| Died | May 21, 2022(2022-05-21) (aged 85) Pomona,California, US |
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| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Gregory of Nazianzus (1965) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Theology |
| School or tradition | |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral students | Gina Messina Dysert |
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Rosemary Radford Ruether (/ˈruːθər/;[1] 2 November 1936 – 21 May 2022) was anAmerican Catholic feministtheologian known for her significant contributions to the fields offeminist theology andecofeminist theology.[2] 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.[3][4]
Ruether was active in thecivil rights movement in the 1960s,[3] and her own work was influenced byliberation andblack theology.[5] She taught atHoward University for ten years, and later atGarrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.[3] Over the course of her career, she wrote on a wide range of topics, includingantisemitism, theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict, the intersection of feminism and Christianity, and theclimate crisis.[6][7]
Ruether was an advocate ofwomen's ordination, a movement amongCatholics who affirm women's capacity to serve as priests, despite official church prohibition.[8] For decades, Ruether served as a board member and then a memberemerita for theabortion rights groupCatholics for Choice.[9] Her public stance on these topics was criticized by some leaders in the Catholic Church.
Ruether was born Rosemary Radford on November 2, 1936, inSaint Paul,Minnesota.[7] 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.[8][7]
Ruether's father died when she was twelve years old, after which Ruether and her mother moved toSan Diego, California. Ruether attended several Catholic schools staffed by theSisters 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.[8] She pursued an undergraduate education atScripps College from 1954 to 1958.
Ruether held a BA inphilosophy andreligion fromScripps College (1958), as well as an MA in ancient history (1960) and a PhD in classics andpatristics (1965) fromClaremont Graduate School inClaremont, California.[10] Given her academic focus in the area of patristics, she wrote herdissertation onGregory of Nazianzus.[6]
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 inLos 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.[7]
Ruether was appointed as a professor atHoward University, anHBCU inWashington, D.C., from 1965 to 1976.[5] During her time at Howard, she chaired the religion department.[7] Despite her radical feminist theology, Ruether remained in theCatholic Church alongside other religious activists. Her first book,The Church Against Itself (1967), criticizes the doctrine of the church and thechurch's views of sexuality and reproduction.[6]
Ruether participated in civil rights activism during the 1960s in Mississippi and Washington, DC. She worked for theDelta Ministry in Mississippi where she was exposed to the struggles of African American communities and the realities of racism. She became immersed inblack liberation theology literature during her time of teaching at the Howard University, School of Religion. She dedicated her time to thepeace 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.[6]
After a brief stint as a visiting professor atHarvard Divinity School, Ruether accepted a position atGarrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary andNorthwestern University inEvanston, Illinois.[7] 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.[8] She also wrote several texts on Jewish-Christian relations, includingFaith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, and on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.[5]
After retiring from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Ruether became the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at thePacific School of Religion andGraduate Theological Union.[5]
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 theWomen'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.[11] Additionally, she served as a board member ofCatholics for Choice, an abortion rights advocacy group, and regularly wrote forThe National Catholic Reporter andSojourners.[12][13] Ruether was also an advocate ofwomen's ordination, a movement amongCatholics who affirm women's capacity to serve as priests, despite official church prohibition.[8]
Ruether experienced a stroke that caused serious injury in 2016.[14] 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.[8]
Ruether died on May 21, 2022, in a hospital inPomona,California, after suffering a long-term illness.[7] She was 85 years old at the time of her death.[15] Ruether is survived by her three children and two grandchildren.[7]
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.[16] 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.[2]
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.[7] In her 1983 bookSexism and God-Talk, she opened up newChristological possibilities by posing the famous question, "Can a male savior save women?"[12]
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 byThe 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."[17]
Ruether's work has been influential in the field of feminist theology,[2][18][19] influencing scholars such asBeverly Wildung Harrison,[20]Pauli Murray,[21] andKwok Pui Lan.[3]
She married Herman J. Ruether, apolitical scientist, in 1957, during her last year of college. In 2002, they co-authored the bookThe Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.[22] They had three children together—two daughters and a son.[7]
Reuther was a member of theDemocratic Socialists of America.[23]
In 1975, Ruether's bookFaith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism was a finalist for the National Book Awards in the category of Philosophy & Religion.[24] 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.[25] Ruether's graduate students collaborated to author and publishVoices of Feminist Liberation: Writings in Honor of Rosemary Radford Ruether in 2012 as a festschrift in honor of Ruether's 75th birthday.[8]
Ruether received at least fourteen honorary doctorate degrees.[8] 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).[25] On January 22, 2000, Ruether received anhonorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology atUppsala University,Sweden.[26] In 2012, Ruether received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (LHD) degree fromWhittier College.[27]
