St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (Aug 2023)
Christian Feminist Theological Ethics
Abstract
As Hilde Lindemann has written, ‘Feminist ethics isn’t a branch of ethics – it’s a way of doing ethics’ (Lindemann 2019: 7). Likewise, Christian feminist theological ethics is not a branch of Christian theology and ethics, it is a way of doing Christian theology and ethics. The most basic description of Christian feminist ethics is that it promotes women’s holistic flourishing by considering the right and the good from the viewpoint of women’s distinctive experiential and intellectual wisdom. Most Christian feminist ethics is also liberationist, believing that Christ’s victory over sin comes with the grace to overcome earthly oppression in both world and church. Specifically, Christian feminist ethicists seek to correct and redress Christian androcentrism: the assumption that men who are cisgender – born male-bodied and identifying as men – and heterosexual – attracted to women – are the paradigm or standard for humanity. This assumption yields beliefs, practices, and attitudes that oppress other genders. The article below surveys the field from a North American white queer Catholic feminist perspective, with an emphasis on the half-century between the early 1970s and the early 2020s, acknowledging that many more authors and trends could have been included. It begins by exploring the historical context of twentieth- to twenty-first-century Christian feminist ethics. Next, it describes feminist approaches to the four main sources of Christian ethics: experience, scripture, tradition, and reason. It then lays out two basic methodological options. After exploring the mark Christian feminists have made on three representative discussions in ethics, it touches on three lingering tensions in the field.
