Faithful Servants: Rosemary Radford Ruether

The Faithful Servants Series gives an in-depth look at the work of some of Garrett-Evangelical's beloved retired faculty and senior scholars, as well as their reflections on their time at Garrett-Evangelical.

What I most valued about being at Garrett-Evangelical was good friendships with faculty, staff and students. A group of faculty and spouses formed a covenant groups that met monthly for many years and this was an important community for me and my husband. I also worked closely in teaching, writing and publishing with other faculty, particularly Rosemary Keller. We often co-taught classes and we wrote a number of books together, including the three volume Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America (Indiana University Press, 2006). These years of co-teaching and writing together was a major part of my academic career.

My favorite course to teach was “The Church and Social Systems”. This course was for many years one possible requirement in social ethics. The course covered the historical construction of social systems, patriarchy, racism, class hierarchy and colonialism and their development today. The church’s mission in relation to social systems was the center of the course. The lectures for this course were published as a book, Christianity and Social Systems by Rowman and Littlefield in 2009.