SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

Feminist philosophy of religion is a tool for the development of justice in theory as well as practice. As such, it claims to root itself in women's experience: not 'religious experience' narrowly defined, but the standpoint of women's lives. Yet until now efforts to develop theology from women's experience have largely fallen back into traditional sources of religious knowledge. A consideration of standpoint theory enables a more radical grounding in women's experience as the source of religious knowledge. The work of Luce Irigaray may be considered as one such attempt, seeking to build a philosophy of religion on the basis of a female gendered divine as the horizon of becoming. Although feminist philosophy of religion is in its infancy, it is one of the most dynamic areas of current work in the philosophy of religion. It must be seen within the wider context of feminist theory, and, more broadly, within the feminist movement as a whole. The feminist movement is not primarily intellectual. Rather, it has as its raison d'etre the effort to bring about radical changes in the structures of society and the ways in which people relate to one another. Feminists believe that women are discriminated against because of their sex, whether or not they are also discriminated against in other ways, such as race, class, sexual orientation, or ability. These latter forms of discrimination are shared by women and men; the former is unique to women. Many feminists believe, furthermore, that if sexual discrimination could be ended, then the social changes of both structure and attitude which would be necessary to bring this about would effect a transformation of society which would help to end other forms of discrimination as well. If the social, economic, and political world were reconstructed in such a way that sexism became a thing of the past, then the radical changes necessary for this to take place would also liberate groups of people in many other areas of life in which they now suffer oppression. The area of religion would not be the least of the areas in which changes would need to occur. Feminism, therefore, is a movement whose first concern is with justice, starting (but not ending) with gender justice. Feminist scholarship is scholarship in the service of this movement for