Category: Scripture

The Biblical Vision of Ecojustice By Rosemary Radford Ruether

“The earth mourns and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants, for   they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes,  broken the everlasting covenants. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.” Isaiah 24: 4-6a.

“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of  knowledge of the Lord,” Isaiah 11: 9.

The 1970’s until today has been a time of an increasing recognition that the western industrial style of industrial development is unsustainable, although this has yet to be acknowledged by leaders of corporate growth. This system of development, based on an affluent minority using a disproportionate share of the world’s natural resources, is fast depleting the base upon which it rests. To expand this type of industrialization is accelerating the coming debacle. We need an entirely new way of organizing human production and consumption in relation to natural resources, one that both distributes the means of life more justly among all earth’s people and also uses resources in a way that renews them from generation to generation.  Continue reading “The Biblical Vision of Ecojustice By Rosemary Radford Ruether”

Rape Culture and the Church By Gina Messina-Dysert

Rape culture – a culture where violence against women and victim blaming is the norm –  is alive and well in our society.   Women are taught from a young age that rape is the worst thing that could possibly happen in our lives.  As a patriarchal institution, the Church supports rape culture.  Although texts, traditions, and teachings can be a resource for women who have been victimized, they can also serve as a roadblock and encourage further victimization.

There has been a long history of women and girls being taught by the Church that their lives are of little value once their hymens are broken.  Citing the rape of Roman matron Lucretia, Church father Jerome stated that rape is the one exception for suicide. In fact, according to Jerome, “Although God is able to do all things, he cannot raise up a virgin after a fall.”*  Although he argued that at the time of the resurrection of the body every affliction and mutilation would be healed, Jerome claimed that not even the power of God could repair a broken hymen.  Likewise, Tertullian commended Lucretia for her suicide and claimed she was an example for Christian women.

Harmful ideas about women, rape, and victimization have been promoted by biblical rape texts and their interpretations.  These “rape texts” of the Bible have been utilized to typify how “real” rape victims behave and suggest that women who claim rape are suspect.  From the story of Ms. Potiphar (Genesis 39), that offers the image of a woman crying rape as one not to be trusted, to the story of Susanna (Daniel 13) that presents the notion that a rape victim should be silent, biblical texts set forth images of women and sexual violence that support rape culture. Continue reading “Rape Culture and the Church By Gina Messina-Dysert”

A Christian Theologian’s Perspective on Feminism By David Buhrow

The following is a guest post written by David Buhrow,MA, Theology Instructor at Notre Dame College.

I am a Christian. Not a “Catholic” Christian or a “Protestant” Christian, just a Christian. I spent most of my early life thinking we (Christians) were making a fairly good effort doing what Jesus would do. I never thought much about this whole feminism thing until I happily, discovered that my firstborn was a girl. Then, everything changed. This little one, this new life, arrived into our world and our world was not ready for her. At the prospect and the potential of her venturing into the world and being able to discover everything for the first time, I found myself frightened and grieved by the ill-fated history of women and the little that the Church has done to resolve the problem. My once ideal and naive understanding of Christianity as being liberating and freeing was dashed to pieces in the hopes of my daughter finding a place in this world and within my Christian faith.

I cannot understand how we have come so far in “Christendom” just to learn that we have not yet begun to “fight the good fight.” When you read the Gospels, you quickly learn that Jesus was a Liberator. He sought to liberate anyone and everyone to free us from each other and ourselves. Paul quoted in Galatians a primal Christian baptismal creed that cries out for freedom and liberation: “There is no Jew or non-Jew, slave or free, male and female.” In this he saved the best for last. He doesn’t say “male or female” as if we should be identifying the differences within Christianity, but “male and female” identifying the unity within our diversity. Paul later writes a series of epistles and letters that seem to have forgotten the basic principles that he allegedly set forth in the Letter to the Galatians. 1 Corinthians 15 mentions a myriad of “witnesses” to the resurrection of Jesus Christ without ne’er a mention of a female. But, when we look back to the 4 canonical (i.e. chosen by men at the leading of god) Gospels, that are supposed to be foundational to our faith, the women were the first and some of the only witnesses to Jesus’ posthumous physical appearances. The men were gone, scared away from Jerusalem, in abstentia, AWOL, missing. Hence, Jesus in his resurrected condition, after enduring hours of debilitating torture and death, and then a shocking-to-the-system resurrection, had to travel on foot all the way to Galilee to “find” his disciples who were “hiding” some 65 miles away. Continue reading “A Christian Theologian’s Perspective on Feminism By David Buhrow”