여성학이 신학에 미친 영향 - 여성신학의 기원과 발전 -

How Women's Studies influenced Theology : Origins and Developments of Feminist Theology

Scholarly disciplines are influenced by one another, but rarely has one discipline influenced others to the extent that women's studies have in modern times. Women's Studies has not enjoyed a high standing among scholarly disciplines. It was not the purpose of women's studies, in the process of building its own unique body of knowledge, to establish a separate disciplines. Theology was not exempted from this challenge. It was this challenge which gave birth to feminist theology. The women's liberation movement preceeded the establishment of women's studies. The movement grew out of the awareness of women's experience of oppression ; theoretical reflection of the experience of oppression led to the beginning of women's studies. In the same way, although feminist theology developed from the challenge and stimulation of women's studies, underneath was the awareness of the oppression of church women through 2000 years of the history of Christianity. Feminist theology has thus had two goals. One is to be a liberation movement to remove the oppressive systems and practices against women in church life. The other is to be a reforming force to challenge the patriarchal tradition of Christianity, and thus to reform Christianity and change the prevailing paradigm in theology. Exploring the beginning and development of feminist theology from the early challenge of women's liberation movements and women's studies to present day trends through the works of four feminist theologians, Mary Daly, Rosemary R. Reuther, Letty M. Russell and Elizabeth S. Fiorenza, the major concern of this study was how to understand the relationship between women's experience and Christian tradition. The character of feminist theology and its methodology is determined by the relationship between women's experience and Christian tradition. How this relationship is understood varies widely among feminist theologians. Feminst theology began with the challenge to and critique of the Christian tradition. In the process of defining the cause of women's oppression, feminist theology in the west assigned it to the patriarchal nature of the Christian tradition. The evaluation of the Christian tradition as a source for the development of feminst theology varies among scholars, yet all feminist theologians agree on the importance of women's experience as the basis for feminist theology. All feminist theology arises from women's experience. Women's experience is not only the starting point for feminist theology but has also become its criterion. It is noted that for feminist theology today, the question is changing from, "Is the Christian tradition a liberating experience for women?" to "What tradition is liberating for women?" In an early stage of feminist theology, it exposed and critiqued patriarchal characteristics of the biblical tradition and Christian theology and made a concerted effort to find the possibilities for women's liberation in the Christian tradition. The focus of feminist theology then moved on to develop appropriate methods for doing feminist theology. Now, feminist theology is trying to reexamine the references or criteria for feminist theology. Consequently, not only is feminist theology using sources outside the Christian tradition but it is moving toward a new religion which sees women's liberation as the criterion for salvation. Therefore the phenomenon of the goddess religion and the diversity and radicality of feminst theology is found around the world. These trends in feminist theology might be understood as signs of the age of pluralism, post-modernism and synthecism in world religions. In short, the waves of the women's liberation movement gave birth to women's studies which then, gave birth to feminist theology. Feminst theology has changed the philosophical viewpoints of various theologies and their methodology. For example, in the area of biblical interpretation, the traditional understanding of the relationship between