Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family - Hardcover

Ruether, Rosemary Radford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807054046 ISBN 13: 9780807054048

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 2000

Synopsis

In a time when 'family values' occupies the minds of politicians and the public, Christianity, Family, and the Rise of the West sheds new light on two of our oldest institutions, and offers a way of rethinking our relationships to ourselves and Christian faith.

About this title

About the Author

Rosemary Radford Ruether, one of the world's leading feminist theologians, is the Georgia Harkness Professor of Applied Theology at the Garrett-Evangelical Seminary. She is author of over thirty books, including Sexism and God-Talk (Beacon / 08070-1205-X / $17.00 pb) and Womanguides (Beacon / 08070-1235-1 / $15.00 pb), and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Reviews

This book is Ruether!s (theology, Garrett-Evangelical Seminary) self-professed critique of the failure of the Christian Right!s family values! campaign to embody an ethic of justice and reconciliation. Highlighting historical Christianity!s paradoxical stances on marriage, celibacy, and women, Ruether argues strongly that the concept of the family has undergone many manifestations over time and that, when espousing a return to family values, the church stands more on cultural standards than theological truths. Ruether!s strength lies in presenting a comprehensive sociopolitical history of women and the family rather than in delineating corresponding Christian/clerical responses to changing social norms. She neither pits church doctrines against social claims nor explains how the church historically altered its vision with respect to the family. While it might sacrifice depth for breadth, this is still a highly readable and important political stab at timely theological and cultural questions for women!s studies and religion collections."Sandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In lucidly accounting for the social construction of the modern family and its sacralization by the Christian right, Ruether is characteristically direct. She begins by juxtaposing a Focus on the Family description of Jesus as "founder of homes" and "creator of families" with Jesus' insistence, in Luke's Gospel, that any disciple of his must hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his or her own life. She concludes by articulating a reimagining of families as structurally diverse "redemptive communities," grounded in friendship, in which making love is "a means of grace for redemptive life." In between, she surveys the transformation of early Christianity's socially critical, politically subversive perspective on the family into the Christian right's defensive regard for the Victorian family as normative. Ruether combines careful scholarship, theological reflection, and passionate vision, and her suggested alternative to the family model that the Christian right favors and would make injunctive will ring true to those living in a world where both Christianity and families are diverse. Steven Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807054046
• ISBN 13: 9780807054048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 294