A feminist ethic of care is an important alternative to ethics based only on abstract principles. Different feminist ethicists are attempting to validate an ethic of care. But there are many problems connected to the philosophical positions used to validate an ethic of care. Alternatively, many contemporary feminist theologians are attempting to validate an ethic of care using feminist theology. However, I believe their theology has serious flaws and destroys rather than validates an ethic of care. Since historically feminist ethical principles were used by differing types of feminists, including early Christian feminists, I believe orthodoxy is a valid position on which to ground an ethic of care.1 In this essay I will explain not only the failure of feminist theology but also the validity of orthodox principles as a foundation for a feminist ethic of care.

I will define feminist ethics and explain why such an ethic is important not only to the feminist movement in particular but to contemporary ethical thought in general. I will explain the problems connected to such an ethic and the various solutions to those problems formulated by feminist ethicists. I will review for the reader the theology feminists are formulating in their attempt to validate an ethic of care. I will also connect the past history of feminist spirituality with the recent growth of feminist theology and explain some of the abysmal problems connected to such theology. Finally I will explain why I believe a feminist ethic of care can be validated using biblical and orthodox principles.

Feminists are formulating an ethic of care partly as a response to the failure of Enlightenment ethics. There are two ways in which Enlightenment ethics fail. The first is the failure to address ethics at a personal level. Abstract principles have no connection to the private actions of the individual isolated from others. The individual's isolated actions guided by only Enlightenment ethics would be based simply on their emotional state. Such states can just as easily lead to an individual ethic of self-inflicted pain as to one of self-respect. This problem can be enlarged to show what ethical problems developed in the nineteenth-century when there existed a division between family life and the public sphere. Women and children isolated from the public realm and living in an environment based on human relationships did not benefit from an ethic based on abstract principles. Laws that governed the public sphere categorized women and children as property; consequently, they were ruled by laws meant to help men arbitrate property disputes. Yet, as individuals in isolation their emotional and mental states were often their only ethical guide.

The second way Enlightenment ethics fail is due to its foundation in rational philosophy. Advocates of rational philosophy often equated human goodness with intelligence and reason. Believing humans were capable of gaining all knowledge and solving all problems with the use of reason, they not only ignored human complexity but also failed to take into account human finitude. Thus, Enlightenment ethical systems are incapable of solving moral dilemmas caused by human finitude and powerlessness. 2

Enlightenment thinkers also ignored human emotion equating them with the irrational and/or unreasoning forces of nature. Conversely, such contemporary thinkers as Carol Gilligan argue that mature moral thinking encompasses tension and complication due to finitude and complexity of humans. Additionally, Gilligan and most feminists who are interested in an ethic of care are attempting to add human emotional responses to ethical equations.

A feminist ethic of care is ethics based on concrete human relationships. It is an ethic that includes differences in culture as well as human complexity and human finitude. Such an ethic also includes the individual concrete self in evaluation. Feminists are interested in such an ethic since it could include as ethical not only decisions about fairness and justice but such acts as nurturing children, caring for the earth and personal growth. Including the concrete individual in the evaluation allows the person making the ethical decision the right to consider their own worth and value their own integrity as part of the decision. Also, cultural uniqueness is valued and preserved when ethical decisions are made using concrete individuals rather than abstract universals.

Any ethical system not grounded on abstract principles must be grounded in some other way in order for ethical mandates to be justified. Although most feminists are interested in including differing cultural norms in their ethics they realize that the worst ethical scenario is moral relativism. Some feminist ethicists attempt to avoid this by positing some kind of determinism as a foundation for their ethics of care. Gilligan suggests that human behavior is psychologically and socially determined.3 Other feminists suggest that moral behavior is biologically determined. Feminist ethicists who view behavior as biologically determined include radical feminists who believe women possess innate goodness. In reality biological determinism removes any reason for ethics at all since what is determined cannot be changed. Psychological and social determinism may be changeable but only with the help of something outside of or transcendent to human society.

Several feminist ethicists have tried to ground ethics in a combination of a deterministic post-structuralism, and a kind of human subjectivity that is not based on “biological or psychological features” but is rather “an emergent property of a historicized experience.”4 However, many feminists are formulating a feminist theology as grounds for a feminist's ethics of care. I will focus on three feminists theologians, Sharon D. Welch, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Mary Daly. Although their approaches and terminologies are different they hold the same theological conclusions.5Their theology is also similar to the theology of early cultural feminists such as Matilda Joslyn Gage and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In fact, Ruether refers to Gilman's theology in her book, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward A Feminist Theology.6 Mary Daly, like Gage, is deeply interested in the occult and claims that Gladys Custance, a spiritualist medium, had “Momentous” influence on her life and writing.7

All three theologians, Sharon D. Welch, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Mary Daly, propose a theological scheme based on the projection theories of atheism. That is the understanding that if humans worship a deity they are simply worshiping their own wish or needs such as the need for a father. However, feminist theologians do not use projection models as a means of refuting or disputing the concept of deity. Rather, they understand deity in process/panentheistic terms. In process theology or panentheism deity is a part of humanity. Deity is working out who it/he/she is in the acts of humanity. Human activity and change are not only revealing who God is but is also shaping who God will be. In most process theology neither God nor humanity know what the ultimate form of God will be. In fact, there may not be an ultimate form of God.

Feminist theologians generally attempt to model God according to the perceived needs of women. Welch, who wishes to emphasize the powerlessness or finitude of humanity as well as humanity's need of community, love and resistance to evil, sees deity in just those terms. Rosemary Radford Ruether wishes to emphasis the full humanity of women as well as an organic community committed to equality for all including the natural world. Her deity is “ the primordial matrix” of matter/energy who is the total self of the universe.8 Mary Daly, who seeks for a new identity for women, views deity as “verb” and understands the Feminist Movement as the unfolding of God. Women's new identity is “something like God speaking forthGod-self.”9

All three theologians reject revelation or revealed religion. They believe that all religion is a human construct and that natural theology is the only method of knowing or understanding God. I have noted in other articles Ruether's realization that during the Nazi era the Confessing church's emphasis on revelation rather than religious consciousness was a basis for the movement's stand against Hitler. Ruether understands that this view of God's transcendence allowed the Confessing Church to stand as critic, protester and resister against the evil culture of its time. But Ruether rejects the stance on revelation since to her it seems to render “irrelevant all relative differences between human systems and cultural synthesis.” For Ruether this emphasis on God's revelation means there can be no new synthesis or “cultural incarnations” for the Church or Christianity.10

But it is just at this point, (knowledge about God given by humanity rather than by God), that radical feminist theology fails to validate an ethic of care. Human conjecture about God and humanity can never rise above the frailties inherent in human reasoning. Nor can religious consciousness transcend the complexity or the sometimes-deceptive meaning of human emotions. Feminist theologians have, in fact, minimized cultural differences by the use of theological syncretism. They have eliminated the wonder of being human by elevating human action to the status of divine and they offer no real way of judging between good and evil. Finally when addressing human evil feminist theologians either treat a part of humanity as scapegoats or their theology (unintentionally) necessitates the negation of the self. I will explore these four problems and explain how they invalidate an ethic of care.

The first problem, minimizing cultural differences by the use of theological syncretism, is of course not apparent to feminist theologians. They are attempting to honor the differences in culture. But by fusing various religious symbols, rites, and concepts into one system they either change or devalue the meanings. Although I may believe my religion is revealed truth and yours is not, I must take you seriously as a person who has a faith and truly believes. (That is different than believing that what I believe is true and what you believe is false.) If I attempt to amalgamate our two faiths into one system or one truth I have belittled both of our faiths. Where religion shapes culture (and it often does) theological syncretism minimizes the culture.

The second problem, equating human action with divinity, would be no problem if the equation were simply a metaphor. Such human activity as love, sacrifice and artistic endeavor gives meaning and a sense of transcendence to human existence. But the idea of deity working out its form in the actions of humanity is reminiscent of capricious Greek gods. In such a case, whether deity is personal or impersonal, humanity becomes the means for deity's self identity, and that is true even if the goal is never reached. In such a scenario individuals, differing cultures and communities may demonstrate the kind of care feminist theologians are writing about but their action becomes only a means in the unfolding movement of deity.

On the other hand, elevating human actions, finitude and complexity to a state of divinity sets a scenario for the deification of evil. Actions, movements and attitudes unduly valued or over emphasized may breed evil. Any good thing raised to a state of divinity, without the attribute of perfection, can become evil. For instance, although community and interdependence are good, an over emphasis on them can lead to a loss of freedom.11Likewise, anger is an action that can be directed toward evil for the sake of good, but anger can also be destructive. In such theology since God does not stand outside of the human experience providing a standard of good who is to say which actions are divine and therefore caring. In feminist theology there is no way of judging good or evil. Ruether's rejection of revelation for the sake of some new “cultural incarnation” is a case in point. Many feminists have, in fact, endorsed feminist separation as a cultural incarnation and have failed to see it as a portent of evil.

Finally, feminist theologians when dealing with evil either treat a part of humanity as scapegoats or ultimately necessitate a final negation of the self.12 Those feminist theologians who believe that evil is a basic human problem also hold to a theology of immanence which places the whole issue squarely on humanity.13 Some radical feminist theologians provide a simplistic solution. They equate men with evil and encourage women to separate from them. Most feminist theology, however, is more complex and its solutions more sophisticated.

Most feminist theologians equate deity with the authentic self. They equate the individual self, which is unique, with that part of humanity that is alienated from community, nature and the authentic self. Letting go of evil means relinquishing individual self for the sake of the authentic self that is considered deity. Although feminist theologians have tried to formulate a religious system that gives women a positive identity they unintentionally have created a system in which the human desire for uniqueness and self-worth are equated with evil. Individuals are compelled in the end to relinquish the self to a supposedly greater or higher good such as the community or even “the great matrix of being.” Ruether, in fact, equates the physical death of the individual, (which she considers the complete loss of the self), with the overcoming of “egoism” in relation to the community.14

There are three reasons for accepting orthodox principles as a foundation for feminist ethics. The first is historical. Some early feminists were Christians and grounded their feminist ethics on biblical principles. The second reason is based on the orthodox understanding of revelation as knowledge about God given by God. God gives the definitions of such terms as father and omnipotent thus investing those words with good rather than evil. The final reason builds on the biblical principle of grace. God's gift of Christ entails equality, reasons for risk, forgiveness, and a community of care.

Such Christian feminists as Sarah Grimke, Katherine Bushnell and Josephine Butler were motivated in their feminism by their Christian experience. Grimke used biblical texts in her defense of women's rights. Bushnell wrote a whole series of Bible studies that encouraged women to view themselves as both equal with men and responsible Christians. Butler, when appealing for ethical treatment of women, pointed to the words and actions of Jesus as her final authority. All three women were moved by human degradation and need - their feminism embraced not only women in general but the needy in particular. Grimke spoke out against slavery and for women's rights. Bushnell cared for the sick and poor and Butler was concerned with the prostitutes of England, France, Italy and India. Care was an integral part of their feminism and was based on their understanding of biblical and orthodox principles.15

“Knowledge about God given by God” as a foundational principle for feminist ethics is important since it means that definitions about God are only valid if they are defined in and by the being of God. That is, what God is, is the true meaning of such words as father or eternality. (Ephesians 3:14,15) From those valid definitions ethical mandates can be measured. When Sharon Welch contends that definitions of God as omnipotent, omniscient and transcendent trap humanity in the role of oppressor she fails to understand the significance of the words “God's revelation.”16Welch understands that human tyranny often develops when persons hold too much power and she projects her understanding onto the orthodox image of God. Karl Barth comments on just this misunderstanding in The Knowledge of God And The Service Of God According To The Teaching Of The Reformation. Barth writes:

We have not to draw our knowledge of who God is from what we think we know about eternity, infinity, omnipotence and invisibility as conceptions which bound our thought. On the contrary, we have to draw our knowledge of eternity, infinity, omnipotence and invisibility from what we can know about God, from what God has said to us about Himself.17

Barth, also, points out that to define God from our own definitions is to define “as Ludwig Feuerbach has irrefutably shown, the essence of man himself.”18 To learn the meaning of such words as power or absolute or even father by observing humanity is too often to learn a lie not only about the words but also about God. Instead, knowledge about God given by God truly defines good and evil. God who is good and who is love is the standard against which evil can be discerned, protested, and resisted. His goodness and love are qualities that a feminist ethic of care can image.

God reveals himself to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. In the humanity of Jesus, in His actions and attitudes, God defines such words as power and weakness, care and harm, death and life. In his death Christ gives power to weakness by overcoming death with his resurrection. In his revelation of who God is Christ also gives identity to individuals. Historically, women have found a definition of their own dignity and worth in the person of Jesus. Josephine Butler uses the word “liberation” to describe “the act which changed the whole life, character and position of the women” Jesus dealt with.19

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this Man -- . . . .Who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about women's nature.20

The third reason for grounding feminist ethics on orthodox principles is the biblical understanding of grace. Grace, according to orthodox understanding, is given to humanity because of Christ's life, death on the cross and resurrection. That is God's goodness offered as an unexpected and undeserved gift to humanity. This gift of God puts humanity on an equal basis, deals with human evil and gives a stable reason for taking risks. Biblical grace entails a community of caring individuals. Within the community grace validates an ethic of care. I will address each of these subjects in turn.

Each person is alienated from God as well as creation. Grace is given because humanity is alienated. Orthodox theology places men and women in equal positions as those alienated and those called to receive grace. The Biblical mandate is equality; “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28b) While many male church leaders in various denominations still insist on women accepting inferior roles in church government and ministry, there are both biblical and historical reasons for rejecting such teaching.21 Women are called to a full and equal life in Christ. A feminist ethics of care, which includes equality, can be grounded on orthodox principles.

Orthodoxy and the biblical text insists that humanity is flawed - all of humanity. But grace is the biblical answer for humanity. Grace means there is both mercy and forgiveness for those who acknowledge their own personal evil. There is also a reason to name, protest against, and resist evil in any form. While Jesus was kind and caring to the poor, the sick, and those who acknowledged their need, he was often angry with those who used and despised others. But his anger was always expressed as a call to repentance for the evildoer. Because of grace both anger and love are ethical emotions found in orthodox principles. Feminist ethics, which include emotional responses such as anger and love, can safely be founded on orthodox principles.

Additionally, the orthodox answer to the problem of evil affirms the importance of the self. There can be no loss of the individual personality; no final absorption into the energy of a primal matrix. In orthodoxy God is separate from creation but deeply concerned with creation. God cares for the individual, the community and all of creation. While the biblical text calls for Jesus' followers to “deny themselves” (Matt. 16:25) this is a call to obedience and relationship. To really be one's self is, as Peer Gynt is told in Ibsen's Peer Gynt, “to show unmistakably the Master's intention whatever you're doing.”22Paradoxically, in orthodoxy denying the self means keeping the self. In The Screwtape Letters, the author, C.S. Lewis, clarifies this subject in a humorous manner. (The speaker, an arch-demon, is writing to his nephew about humans and their relationship to God. The demon refers to God as the Enemy.) Lewis writes:

Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of everyone of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, He gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.23

In her feminist theology, Welch is interested in risk taking. She writes of the need to recognize “that we cannot image how we will win.” She also writes of the need to keep resisting in order to preserve our physical life, our imagination and our ability to care.24 But all of these human qualities are also important to orthodoxy, and taking risks is basic to Christian discipleship. However, those who follow Christ can take risks because in the present they are eternal in Christ. No risk taken for Christ is ever lost however defeated the risk taker might be. Mary Slessor is an example. A Scottish missionary of the nineteenth century, she served in Calabar, West Africa. Slessor cared for babies abandoned because they were twins or were cutting their teeth the wrong way. She settled fights between feuding tribes and prevented “the appalling punishments the chiefs were in the habit of doling out to minor wrongdoers.” She ran a school and dispensary. Slessor died having experienced great suffering including being covered with boils and going bald. After her death a civil war in West Africa destroyed all that she had accomplished except for the memory of her spiritual nurture which would cause later Christian work to flourish. 25 More importantly, Slessor's work and the risks she took, still have meaning with Christ and His Church. Feminist ethical theory with the concept of risk would be well grounded on orthodox principles.

The orthodox principle of grace insures a community of caring people. In fact, the biblical community is a community connected like Welch's communities to ancient covenants and peoples. The biblical text demands that the Church look back to the faithfulness of ancient people. They are to remember such men of faith as Noah and Abraham. Likewise, they are to remember such women of faith as Rahab the prostitute, and Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives who saved the babies of the Hebrew slaves. But more than a remembrance of the wisdom, tenacity or faithfulness of the ancient Hebrews the community of grace is to remember the faithfulness of God to those people. They are to remember that God caused Abraham to be the father of many nations, that God saved Rahab's family and she became an ancestor of Christ, and God gave Shiphrah and Puah families of their own. (Joshua 6:25, Matt. 1:5, Exodus 1:20)

Care within the community is an ethical mandate that is important to orthodoxy and is also grounded in grace. All of Christ's activity can be seen as care. Jesus is the example. Teaching the truth, caring for the sick, holding a child, flogging the money changers and serving the discouraged disciples breakfast were all caring acts. When He washed the feet of the disciples he told them “if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.” (John 13:14) Leaders in the community are called to be servants, and ultimately all disciples are called to be servants both within and outside the community. At the same time, the biblical text does not insist on domestic servanthood for women. Christ himself praised Mary for sitting at his feet learning although her sister Martha protested that she should help with domestic chores. (Luke 10:38-42) Although Dorcas cared for those around her by sewing clothes for the poor (Acts 9:36-40), Phoebe ministered as a deacon in the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1) and Euodia and Syntyche “struggled beside” Paul in the work of the gospel.” (Phil. 4:2-3)

Furthermore, care for others and for creation is mandated so that care within the community extends outward to others and nature. Both the Hebrew and Christian texts are rich with pictures of God's love and pleasure with his creation. For instance, the last five chapters of Job resound with God's pleasure in the animals he has created, while the New Testament states that God not only feeds the sparrows and ravens but also never forgets them. (Luke 12:6, 24) More importantly the biblical understanding of redemption includes the redemption of all creation. (Romans 8:19-21) Indeed grace embraces all under the ethic of care. Even the individual discovers an ethic of care in orthodoxy since grace creates a relationship between the person and a personal God. The individual in fellowship with God finds a reason for ethical action whether alone or in community.

Thus I have shown that both early and contemporary feminist use orthodox principles as grounds for their feminism. In fact, I have proven that historically and in the present some feminist have developed their feminist philosophy as an outgrowth of their Christianity. I have also demonstrated the deep problems with contemporary feminist theology. Finally using the orthodox principles of revelation and grace I have established a sound basis for founding a feminist ethic of care on Orthodox principles.

13 Contemporary Wicca advocates treat the problem of evil differently since they see “the Goddess” as the “world.” StarHawk writes, “She is the world, and all things in it: moon, sun, earth, star, stone, seed, flowing river, wind, wave, leaf and branch, bud and blossom, fang and claw, woman and man.” (22). Although Goddess devotes do have an ethical code, their theology is often contradictory or alternatively they understand evil and death as necessary and incorporate them into the Goddess. Starhawk's theology is simply contradictory. StarHawk, Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, 10th Anniversary Edition, (New York: Harper & Row, San Francisco 1989), Chapter One.

21 For biblical reasons see Richard & Catherine Clark Kroeger, I suffer Not A Women: Rethinking I Timothy 2:11-15 In Light of Ancient Evidence, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House 1992); Ben Witherington III, Women In The Earliest Churches, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 59, ed. G>N> Stanton, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988): any copy of Prisilla Papers published by “Christians For Biblical Equality”, St. Paul, MN. For historical reasons see Janette Hassey, No Time For Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry Around the Turn of The Century, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House 1986); any copy of Prisilla Papers.

25 Carol Christian & Gladys Plummer, God and One Redhead: Mary Slessor of Calabar, (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1970) 184. Mary Slessor, see her letters at, http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/centlib/slessor/letintro.htm. Joanna Trollope, Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire, (London: Pimlico, Random House 1983), 194-199. W.P. Livingstone. Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary, tenth edition, (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1918).