Rosemary Radford Ruether

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, 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.

Biography

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. Given her academic focus in the area of patristics, she wrote her dissertation on Gregory of Nazianzus. During her time at Howard, she chaired the religion department. 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. 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 is survived by her three children and two grandchildren. 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.

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. They had three children together—two daughters and a son.

Honors and awards 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. 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). .