The Bonds of Freedom

Abstract

Abstract Feminist theologians have commonly identified Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism as a prime example of a patriarchal theological ethic that promotes domination. In this study, the author claims that Niebuhr's thought can be usefully appropriated and revised in service of a new ethic – a feminist Christian realism. This new ethic is offered as an answer to the loss of moral grounding and critical judgment within some North American feminist theologies. She contends that an increasingly radical feminist emphasis on divine immanence and human boundedness has undercut key assumptions upon which feminism rests. Niebuhr's realism, she believes, can be the source of a necessary correction. Feminist theologians. Miles argues, would be better served by using the categories of Christian realism to retrieve critically, a more positive understanding of divine transcendence and human self‐transcendence while maintaining their emphasis on human boundedness and divine presence. This position is developed by drawing together the contributions of Niebuhr, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Sharon Welch (two prominent feminist theologians). Ruether's turn to creation and Welch's turn to community together provide an important corrective to Niebuhr's Christian realism.