'The aim of feminist theology is simply to seek equality between women and men' Discuss.
Feminist theology is a movement found in many religions. Feminist theology aims to reconsider the traditions, scriptures and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. It can be argued that feminist theology just wants equality between men and women, however, It can also be put across that seeking equality is not their only aim.
Liberal feminist theology is fundamentally rooted in the Enlightenment philosophers who place a high value on reason and recognise that men and women share the same powers of reason. Key thinkers, such as Immanuel Kant, think that whilst there may be physical differences between men and women, there is no difference in terms of human reason. Liberal feminist theologians argue that although the Bible is often patriarchal and biased against women, there is nevertheless a strand which runs from Genesis to Galatians which consider men and women to be created equally in the image of God and therefore entitled to equal respect. They would argue that the Bible shows that women can perform a wide variety of roles and that certain texts are particularly important in demonstrating this. One is the story of Deborah. The scripture characterises Deborah as a prophet, judge and poet. She summons the Israelite commander Barak, addresses him forcefully with a command from the Lord and gives him specific tactical orders. A stark contrast to the strength and leadership of Deborah is the submissiveness of Jephthah's daughter. Stanton rejected the way the story was interpreted and hypothesised a better ending- one which involved Jephthah's daughter standing up for herself and rejected her vow. The fact that Stanton rejected the first interpretation about Jephthah's daughter and gave it a different meaning, which was that she made another ending, where the