Feminist theology may be believed as that part of this expedition for justice which is concerned with decisive analysis and invigorating repossession of the meaning of religious traditions. In the approximately thirty five years of its existence, modern feminist theology has produced a huge, international body of literature that varies across all of the theological field and beyond. The notes that follow revisit several salient themes and debates in the area of systematic theology, although no hard and fast division obtains between this discipline and feminist ethics and biblical hermeneutics.
Feminist theology provides foundational categories drawn from the contextual linkage of theology and location, both physical and social. Here we will discuss three major areas:
Embodiment
Feminists and traditionalists alike argue that embodiment is fundamental to the Christian tradition. But given the wide range of meanings which embodiment can presume, there is no one ultimate feminist perspective on embodiment. What differentiates feminist theological treatments of embodiment are these correlated features: a disbelief of views that see women as being more "naturally" embodied than are men; a refusal of a dualist framework for conceptualizing embodiment; a apprehension to place embodiment in a chronological and social context; an expansion of embodiment as a worth to wider issues, such as the nature of the person, customs for moral action, and the human relationship to the earth; a festivity of embodiment in new forms of rite and liturgy.
The "suspicion" with which feminist theology holds theories which associate women to body and nature is a fundamental issue for feminist theologians. This relation has often been the grounds for founding a dualistic hierarchy of mind and soul over body, in which men are recognized with mind/soul and women with body. Yet there is as well a feminist apprehension to value the "uniqueness" of women's embodied.....
