Suffering and the Vulnerable Rule of God: A Feminist Epistemology - Hardcover

by Op Kathleen McManus (Author)

"How is the reign of God revealed through the suffering experience of women and the marginalized?" That is the question Kathleen McManus seeks to answer. She employs the Lukan image of the "bent-over-woman-standing-up-straight" as the paradigm for all who are marginalized because of gender, sexual orientation, or race. Her viewpoint arises from encounters with individuals and communities who suffer exclusion, negation, diminishment, and violence in relation to a patriarchal church in a still-patriarchal world. Engaging Edward Schillebeeckx's method of negative contrast experience, McManus explores what may be known in the space of encounter between the institutional church and these suffering "others" and draws out latent possibilities for mutual conversion and transformation. She reflects on the meaning of Schillebeeckx's insight into "the superior power of God's defenseless vulnerability" in creation and on the cross and asks what it might mean for the church to embody the vulnerable rule of God in its own structures, doctrines, symbols, and rituals.

Author Biography

Kathleen McManus, OP, currently teaches at Fordham University in New York, where she lives and works as an independent scholar. Previously she served as associate professor of theology and director of the M.A. in Pastoral Ministry Program at the University of Portland, and held the Rev. Robert J. Randall Distinguished Professorship at Providence College (Spring 2017). She serves on the international editorial team for the Bloomsbury/T&T Clark Series in Edward Schillebeeckx.