Collin Grogan

In Reuther’s “Sexism and God Talk” she tries to explain that throughout the history of the bible women have not been given full humanity because of the patriarchal society. She gives thoughts and examples that support her theses in a variety of topics including the creation of mankind, language, anthropology, evil, eschatology, and Christology to name a few. She highlights ways that women are discriminated against in Christianity as well as promoting the participation of women in the church. As a whole Reuther is simply trying to defend women’s humanity.

In chapter two the topic she touches on is the way people talk about God as a male figure and not female. The thought of God not being a male has honestly never crossed my mind. It seems like God is always referred to as male and it just seems normal. The thought of God being a female honestly sounds strange to me but Reuther brings up a few good arguments as to why God could be female. In the beginning of the chapter she mentions that there is archeological evidence that the earliest image of the divine was female (48). This just says that the divine has not always been looked at as a male although in most cases that is how we refer to God. The idea of God being male simply overshadows the idea of God being female. I believe that the way Reuther writes is both informative and productive because she does not just come out and say that what she believes is true or that the image of God being female is right or wrong. She states her opinions without being offensive or forceful.

Reuther later talks about humanity as male and female, which I thought was interesting. The discussion that we had in class about how women are more capable of sin kind of struck me because I have never thought of sinning being related to gender. The concept of this was just kind of mind blowing to me because when I think of sin I think “ok this person did something wrong”, I have never thought of relating it to gender. How is it even possible that your sex could make you more prone to sin? What I Collin Grogan took from this idea is that the idea of women being more capable of sin is what gives them the negative image in patriarchal society. Even though Eve was the first to sin against God it does not mean that women are more capable of sinning. Adam still sinned but it does not seem like he received the same negative attention that Eve did just because he is a man. At least to me it seems like women have taken more of a fall because Eve was the first to sin.

Reuther also talks about the male ideology in relation to humanity. The male ideology states that men are superior and women are inferior for two reasons. The first reason given is for support of the male identity as normative humanity. The second reason is for the justification of servile roles for women. I feel like this ideology is the big reason that women’s humanity has not been fully attained in the church. If you think of males being the norm or basis of humanity it automatically puts women in a negative light because there are obviously differences between men and women. The idea of basing normative humanity on a specific gender seems unfair to me.

I thought that the reading was actually difficult to soak in. I’m not sure if it was just the way it was written or if I was just struggling to understand the content. I think that a lot of it was just kind of out in left field compared to what I have grown up believing. I guess the biggest thing that I had trouble trying to grasp a hold of is her chapter on evil. I did not quite understand what she was trying to get across.

I know that I am not super religious or anything but just the thought some of the ideas that were presented were a bit odd. I do agree with Reuther to a degree about women’s humanity in the church. Like I said before it seems wrong to me to think that women are inferior just because they are not men. Why should that matter? I like that Reuther put the root of human image of the divine as the

“Primal Matrix”. When things are put into metaphors I feel like I can understand them better because I can see what someone is talking about from a different perspective. She refers to it as the great womb Collin Grogan within which all things, Gods and humans, sky and earth, human and nonhuman beings are generated

I do not necessarily have questions that can be answered by Reuther but I do have a question that I feel like she could use to spark discussion about normative humanity. My question is, if men are the normative form of humanity then what are women to do to equalize themselves as men to achieve normative humanity? Can they even reach normative humanity or are they stuck where they are just because they are women?

Overall Reuther’s main argument of women’s humanity is absolutely valid and I believe that women should be thought of more than just inferior to men. With that being said I do however believe that God is in fact a man simply because God is a masculine title. I’m not saying that if God actually is female that I would be disappointed by any means, but it is stated in the Bible that God is known as the father. That argument is in my opinion one of the more disputed topics.