Rosemary Radford Ruether

Abstract Rosemary Radford Ruether (b. 1936) is one of the foremost contemporary feminist theologians. With some twenty-five books and over four-hundred articles to her name, she is certainly one of the most prolific. And although she is most widely known for her work in feminist theology, it should not be forgotten that her writings cover a much broader range of subjects, all of which she sees as closely interrelated, including Jewish-Christian relations, race and class relations, environmental ethics, contemporary Palestinian-Israeli relations, and various issues in contemporary Roman Catholicism. Ruether’s professional training was in historical theology, with an emphasis on classics and patristic theology. After she received her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School in 1965 (her dissertation was “Gregory Naziansus: Rhetor and Philosopher”), she taught church history, among other things, at Howard Divinity School, a primarily African American seminary in Washington, D.C. During the mid-196os she participated actively in the Civil Rights movement. In 1976 she moved to Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois (outside Chicago), where she became the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology, and where she still teaches today. She grew up and remains a Roman Catholic, though she engages in constant critique of the church.