Rosemary Radford Ruether

Rosemary Radford Ruether
Rosemary in 1974
Born
Rosemary Radford

(1936-11-02)November 2, 1936
Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
DiedMay 21, 2022(2022-05-21) (aged 85)
Pomona, California, US
Spouse
Herman Ruether
​
(m. 1957)​
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisGregory of Nazianzus (c. 1965)
Academic work
DisciplineTheology
School or tradition
Institutions
Doctoral studentsGina Messina Dysert
Main interests
Notable works
  • Sexism and God-Talk (1983)
  • Gaia and God (1994)
Influenced

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.[1] 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.[2][3]

Ruether was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s,[2] and her own work was influenced by liberation and black theology.[4] She taught at Howard University for ten years, and later at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.[2] 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.[5][6]

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.[7] For decades, Ruether served as a board member and then a member emerita for the abortion rights group Catholics for Choice.[8] Her public stance on these topics was criticized by some leaders in the Catholic Church.

  1. ^ Ackermann, Denise (2008). "Rosemary Radford Ruether : themes from a feminist liberation story". Scriptura: Journal for Biblical, Theological and Contextual Hermeneutics. 97: 37–46. doi:10.7833/97-0-712. ISSN 2305-445X.
  2. ^ a b c Parsons, Monique (May 22, 2022). "Rosemary Radford Ruether, a founding mother of feminist theology, has died at age 85". NPR.org. Archived from the original on April 10, 2023. Retrieved 2022-06-21.
  3. ^ Bouma-Prediger, Steven (1995). The greening of theology: the ecological models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph Sittler, and Juergen Moltmann. Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press. ISBN 978-0-7885-0163-0. OCLC 33105042.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Miller Francisco, Grant D. (1999). "Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology: Rosemary Radford Ruether". people.bu.edu. Archived from the original on January 18, 2023. Retrieved 2020-11-28.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Hunt, Mary E. (October 15, 2014). "The life of 'scholar activist' Rosemary Radford Ruether". National Catholic Reporter. Archived from the original on June 3, 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-09.
  8. ^ Barbato, Lauren (2022-05-24). "As Catholic Bishops Punish Dissent, Rosemary Radford Ruether's Life and Legacy Show the Way Forward". Religion Dispatches. Archived from the original on February 1, 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-01.