Chapter 1 - Aims and Key Terms

Summary

Gender and Christian Ethics builds on three convictions. First, that the problem of gender, in the world and in the world’s religions, ranks equal to the problems of climate change, the failure to eliminate poverty, to secure world peace, and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Indeed all these problems intersect and are ‘gendered’. Any reader detecting a whiff of exaggeration here is asked to suspend judgment at least until the end of Chapter 2. Unfortunately the conduct of relations between the sexes at all levels – personal, social, national, international, and global – is too often affected by the presumption of male power and privilege, to the detriment of women. Throughout the world shocking violence against women is increasing, and the complicity of the world’s religions in endorsing and legitimising it is becoming better known. The book is a contribution to more peaceable, more equal relations between women and men, especially in countries and places where Christian faith is practiced.