Feminist Theology Charts New Course

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 3 (RNS) -- Letty M. Russell was one of only two women seminarians to graduate from Harvard Divinity School in 1958. More than four decades later, Russell, now a world-renowned feminist theologian who joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 1974, is retiring. This spring will be her last teaching semester.

She leaves a changed landscape in Christian feminist theology as well as for the role of women in the church.

When Russell was a seminarian in the 1950s, many Protestant churches did not ordain women clergy. What is now the Presbyterian Church (USA) began ordaining women in 1957, and the Episcopal Church didn't recognize the ordination of women until 1976. Now virtually all mainline denominations ordain women.

This past fall more than 100 -- mostly female, but a few male -- alumni returned to Yale Divinity School to honor Russell's contribution to feminist theology and to take stock of the movement.

They recalled the 1970s, when feminist theology struggled for self-definition and academic acceptance, Russell was one of only two women on the divinity school's faculty, and using inclusive language -- such as "human" instead of "man" -- was the exception rather than the rule.

In this context, Russell and others developed feminist theology as a parallel to the wave of feminism dominating America in the 1970s. Spurred on by the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements, women also began demanding equal rights and the same access to the professions as men.

In many ways they were successful. Yet feminist theology now is different from what it was in the 1970s, said Russell and others of both that first and the current generation of Protestant and Catholic women theologians.

To begin with, Russell says, "We don't talk about feminist theology anymore. We speak about theologies. There's womanist (African-American women's) theology, Asian theology, mujerista (Hispanic) and `queer' theology (the theology of gays and lesbians)."

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