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Rating: 
Summary: Should We Be Learning To Speak of God In the Feminine?
Review: Biblical scholar and theologian Schneiders gave a lecture in 1986 that is reproduced in this short but closely reasoned book. She deals with the problems created for many contemporary Christians---women in particular---by the imputed "maleness" of God and Jesus in the Bible, as well as tradition. Too often in history, the assumption has been made that "If God is male, then males are divine."Schneiders acknowledges that "male" imagery dominates the portrayal of God in the Old Testament, but notes that there are a surprising amount of "feminine" metaphors used for God as well, such as in the Song of Songs, the Psalms, and Hosea. These allusions are the more powerful as they run contrary to the general patriarchal tendency of Israelite culture. Nevertheless, she thinks that "Fatherhood," if not used exclusively, IS an appropriate metaphor for God. She notes that if God is pure Spirit, then gender metaphors should not be "literalized or absolutized." A particular problem she is concerned with is the fact that Jesus was unquestionably a biological male. Schneiders celebrates the "reform of male-female relationships" that was initiated by Jesus, and concludes that "Today we would call Jesus a feminist; that is, a person who believes in the full personhood and equality of women and who acts to bring that belief to realization in society and church." While she feels that the maleness of Jesus is "theologically, christologically, and sacramentally irrelevant," she concludes that "only as a man could he have subverted the accepted definition of masculinity . . . and destroyed patriarchy's claims to divine sanction." She notes that women are able to relate to Jesus in ways that men cannot (e.g., as sister, mother-figure, and as man/woman), and concludes the book by suggesting that "We must learn to speak about God in the feminine." This short book presents a much more "positive" case for the Christian feminist position than one often sees; Schneiders reasons calmly, and refrains from the strident polemicizing that one sometimes encounters in pro-feminist theology. This book should whet one's appetite to pursue Schneider's other, book-length treatments of related subjects.
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Summary: Short but wonderful
Review: Can a male saviour save women? This question has been hounding me for a long time. I've read big fat books by Ruether, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Schussler-Fiorenza, but this little gem of a book gave me an answer. It's written in very understandable English, and addresses very tough questions without lapsing into anger (not that anger is wrong, but it gets in the way). Schneiders answers the question "can a male saviour save women?" the answer is YES. Not only that, she shows that in order to do it, G-d >had< to be incarnated in a male, so as to bust patriarchy from the inside. Made a lot of sense to me. I will read all other books by this author.
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