FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
An Inclusive Perspective
Keywords:
Feminist Epistemology, Inclusive Philosophy, Grace Jantzen, Pamela Sue Anderson, Reason, ReligionAbstract
Feminist philosophers of religion such as Pamela Sue Anderson and Grace Jantzen have endeavoured to identify masculine bias in the concepts of God found in the scriptures of the world’s religions and in other religious writings and practices in which religious beliefs are proposed and assessed, and to transform the Philosophy of Religion, and thereby the lives of women, by recommending new or expanded epistemologies and using these to re-vision a concept of the divine which will inspire both women and men to work for the promotion of a just and compassionate society. It is argued in this paper, that the epistemologies of Jantzen and Anderson are not distinctively feminist, except by emphasising the inclusion of women. This might mean being more open to the concepts of the divine which are not, even in a metaphorical sense, masculine, and enhancing awareness of the ways in which abstract arguments about the divine could be relevant to the practical aspects of human life which have traditionally been the preserve of women. Insofar as these are increasingly also the responsibility of men, however, a feminist Philosophy of Religion might now be more appropriately characterised as an inclusive Philosophy of Religion.
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