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Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 157-158



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Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet: A Buddhist-Christian Conversation . By Rita M.Gross and Rosemary Radford Ruether. New York: Continuum, 2001. 229 pp.

This is a delightful book with many strengths. One strength is the framework of questions that organize the book: "What is Most Problematic about My Tradition?" "What is Most Liberating about My Tradition?" "What is Most Inspiring for Me about the Other Tradition?" Gross and Ruether answer these questions in turn both succinctly and powerfully and respond to each other's answers in illuminating ways. These questions are framed by three other sections: an introduction to the nature of the kind of interfaith dialogue that Ruether and Gross have engaged in for many years and that they reproduce in this book; two autobiographies; and an essay by each on what her tradition offers to the task of attaining ecologically sustainable societies so essential to the future of the planet. All of the writing in response to these topics and questions is admirably clear, deep, and engaging. It leads the reader into the heart of the thinking of both Ruether and Gross.

Which of the many strengths of the book is the most important to one as a reader depends on whether or not she or he is coming fresh to the thought and scholarship of Ruether or Gross. In my case, although I have read and taught books and articles by Rosemary Ruether over the years, I am not thoroughly familiar with her theological and ethical thought. I learned a great deal from her short, accessible presentations of Christian history and of her theology in this book.

On the other hand, I have been very interested for a long time in how gender is [End Page 157] constructed in Buddhism and how women and men have expressed themselves, taught, and acted in Buddhist cultures. I have read all of Rita Gross's past work with great appreciation. I have assigned her book Buddhism after Patriarchy in dozens of courses on Women and Religion and on Buddhism at my university. I found familiar from Rita's other work the arguments, visions, and imaginative reconstructions in this book in answer to the core questions. It is still the case that many Buddhist lineages and communities, particularly where non-Western teachers are in charge, are slow to open the full range of practices and positions of responsibility to women. Yet Buddhist practice has a great deal to offer women. Rita Gross writes eloquently on these topics, with clarity, accuracy, passion, and balance. You can trust her on these subjects.

I thus found Rita's autobiographical piece to be the most illuminating offering of the Buddhist part of the book. She tells of the suffering a girl of her nature had to endure in the environment in which she grew up. The facts of her life make evident the extraordinary courage, determination, and commitment she called forth from herself as she forged her own identity and her own pioneering path. She tells of the many roadblocks she encountered from those in authority in her graduate school when she insisted that studying the religion of women was an important task of the History of Religions. Her story illustrates just how powerful the blindness that we academics nourish unchallenged in ourselves can be. It also shows how badly we can act when students demand that we open our eyes. She recounts the difference she believes Buddhist practice made in her ability to sustain her feminist scholarship in the face of persistent lack of academic support.

In Rita's autobiography, as also in Rosemary's, one can see how a particular intellectual and moral direction emerged for each woman out of her response to the particular practices and convictions of her social world. Rita's autobiographical piece is very helpful in understanding this great scholar and her times and what Buddhist practice came to mean in the life of a Western feminist scholar of religion. Rosemary's liberal Roman Catholic upbringing...

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