The purpose of this article is to clarify some key points of feminist theology as espoused by Mary Daly. Daly is not a Christian theologian, she describes herself as a post-christian radical feminist. Many of her views and presuppositions will be strange to a Christian reader. This article’s purpose is not to explain or defend Daly’s theological positions, because in my opinion many of her views are nonsense. Instead my goal is to familiarize you with selected points of Daly’s feminist theology so that you may be prepared to dialogue with persons who advance this radical viewpoint, as well as understand the historical foundations and extremes which support the extremes of feminist thought today.

Brief Biographical Sketch of Mary Daly

Mary Daly “started out a perfectly normal, good little girl, . . .who wanted to study philosophy and religion.”¹ Daly wrote little of her early life mentioning it only briefly throughout her writings, such as that she grew up in a “Catholic ghetto.”² Her family lived in Schenectady, New York where she attended parochial school.³ Her “father was a traveling salesman who sold ice-cream freezers,”⁴ with enough success to eventuate his writing a book on the subject.⁵ Daly’s mother loved learning but had been forced to quit high school, and therefore gave Daly “everything that she had not been given in her own childhood.”⁶

Daly writes of three different experiences that greatly affected the course of her life. First, as a fourteen-year-old, Daly had “a startling communication from a clover blossom . . .[when] it said, with utmost simplicity, ‘I am.’ It was an experience that I would later call an ‘intuition of Be-ing, the Verb in which we all participate.”⁷ Later in her life as she was translating Middle English late into the night while a student at Catholic University of America, she “fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of green: Elemental, Be-Dazzling Green. When I woke up, I had a revelation: ‘Study philosophy!’” Sometime later while sitting in class, she “suddenly had a vision of [herself] standing at a black board teaching theology.”⁸

After earning her M.A. in English from Catholic University of America, Daly studied for and received her first Ph. D. in Sacred Theology at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame; she was twenty-five. When she could not find what she considered suitable employment she decided to continue her education.⁹ Thus, in 1959 Daly left America to study at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, “where there was scholarship money available.”¹⁰ She earned two Ph. D. degrees from the university of Fribourg, one in Sacred Theology and another in Philosophy.¹¹ It is apparent that Daly was already beginning to identify with feminism prior to Vatican II by the concluding remarks she wrote in a review of an early feminist work. She wrote:

This much I Know: the beginnings of these books (how badly we need these books, especially!) are already in the minds and on the lips of many of us. And— this is both a prophecy and a promise—they will come.¹²

It was with high hopes for lasting and meaningful reforms within her Roman Catholic Church that Mary Daly attended the meetings of Vatican II in Rome in the fall of 1965.¹³ From this experience, however, she emerged even more impressed with the hopelessness of women in the Church. She described the scene as she sat in the press section of St. Peters during one of the sessions:

I saw in the distance a multitude of cardinals and bishops — old men in crimson dresses. In another section of the basilica were the ‘auditors’: a group which included a few Catholic women, mostly nuns in long black dresses with heads veiled. The contrast between the arrogant bearing and colorful attire of the ‘princes of the church’ and the humble, self-depreciating manner and somber clothing of the very few women was appalling. . . When questioned by the press afterward, the female ‘auditors’ repeatedly expressed their gratitude for the privilege of being present. Although there were one or two exceptions, for the most part they were cautious about expressing any opinion at all. Although I did not grasp the full meaning of the scene all at once, its multi leveled message burned its way deep into my consciousness. ¹⁴

When her education in Europe was complete she returned to United States where she

began teaching in what was ostensibly the liberal theology department at Jesuit-run Boston College, which, over the years, would serve as my laboratory for the study of patriarchal tricks and for the development of Radical Feminist strategies.¹⁵

After her book The Church and the Second Sex was published she was terminated by Boston College. Her case attracted national attention, and massive student demonstrations ensued, both of which Daly is quite proud. Later in the summer of 1969 in an unexplained reversal of its previous action Boston College promoted Daly and gave her tenure.¹⁶ Tenure, however, was not her only goal. In 1975 she applied for “a long overdue promotion”¹⁷ to full professor and again in 1988 but “was met with ridiculous rejection”¹⁸ on both occasions. Daly’s professorial career at Boston College ended in controversy when she refused to admit male students to some of her classes.”¹⁹ She died on January 3, 2010.

Theological Methodology

When studying the writings of Mary Daly one must understand that in the early 1970s she underwent a “dramatic/traumatic change of consciousness from ‘radical feminist’ to post-christian feminist.”²⁰ So great was the change in Daly’s perspective during this time that she admits to having trouble recalling the former person. She demonstrated the full extent of this change by writing an autobiographical preface to a reprint of her book The Church and the Second Sex in which she reviewed her previous work as though it were written by another Mary Daly. Her transition was completed with her “graduation from the Catholic church [which she] formalized by a self-conferred diploma, [her] second feminist book, Beyond God the Father.”²¹ During this time she became the first woman to receive an invitation to preach at Harvard’s Memorial Church. After much angst over whether or not to accept the invitation, she accepted, but only for the purpose “of giving an anti-sermon that would be a clarion call to abandon patriarchal religion.”²²

The earlier incarnation of Daly had been attempting to secure reforms from within the Catholic church which would open opportunities for women. The later Daly, however, became not just post-christian but increasingly anti-christian,²³ and not just feminist but increasingly anti-male.²⁴

For the early Daly, the essence and role of women as well as the record of her mistreatment in the Scriptures, writings of the church fathers, and practice of nearly two thousand years of society must be dealt with before one may begin to do theology. Furthermore, one must also clarify the sex of God prior to doing of authentic theology.²⁵ Questions like: is he male or female? neither or both? do we call him God or goddess? must be asked thoughtfully and then the answers, once formulated, must be consistently applied throughout ones doctrine. Daly attempts to have it both ways when she admits that “no theologian or biblical scholar believes that God literally belongs to the male sex,”²⁶ while still maintaining that “bits of evidence that the absurd idea that God is male lingers on in the mind of theologians, preachers and simple believers, on a level which is not entirely explicit or conscious.”²⁷ She asserts that this misconception of God prevents modern man from attempting to improve social conditions because the picture of God as “all powerful, all just. . . and changeless”²⁸ convinces him that any attempt to change the situation would be in vain.

Daly’s problem is well stated when she writes, “If God in ‘his’ heaven is a father ruling ‘his’ people, then it is in the ‘nature’ of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male-dominated.”²⁹ The later Daly’s goals can be easily understood as she explains her intended theological method.

Asked if this work is intended to be a ‘new theology,’ I must point out that the expression is misleading. To describe one’s work as ‘theology’ or even as ‘new theology’ usually means that the basic assumptions of patriarchal religion will be unchallenged and that they constitute a hidden agenda of the work. I am concerned precisely with questioning this hidden agenda that is operative even in so-called radical theology. I do not intend to apply ‘doctrine’ to women’s liberation. Rather, my task is to study the potential of the women’s revolution to transform human consciousness . . .if one must use traditional labels, my work can at least as accurately be called philosophy. . . .If the word ‘theology’ can be torn free from its usual limited and limiting context, if it can be torn free from its function of legitimating patriarchy, then my book can be called an effort to create theology as well as philosophy. For my purpose is to show that the women’s revolution, insofar as it is true to its own essential dynamics, is an ontological, spiritual revolution, pointing beyond the idolatries of sexist society and spark creative action in and toward transcendence.³⁰

When speaking more specifically concerning her theological method Daly admits that hers is not

a ‘kerygmatic theology,’ which supposes some unique and changeless revelation peculiar to Christianity or to any religion. Neither is my approach that of a disinterested observer who claims to have an ‘objective knowledge about’ reality. Nor is it an attempt to correlate with the existing cultural situation certain ‘eternal truths’ which are presumed to have been captured as adequately as possible in a fixed and limited set of symbols. None of these approaches can express the revolutionary potential of women’s liberation for challenging the forms in which consciousness incarnates itself and for changing consciousness. The method required is not one of correlation but of liberation. Even the term ‘method’ must be reinterpreted and in fact wrenched out of its usual semantic field, for the emerging creativity in women is by no means a merely cerebral process.³¹

Consequently “feminist theology is usually understood as a form of critical Liberation Theology.”³² For Daly the goal women is to chose “Self, . . .define . . . Self, by choice, neither in relation to children nor to men, [to be] Self-identified.”³³ The only means available to women is to totally recreate society so that all elements of patriarchy are removed and women are freed from the oppression that is rampant throughout all of society.

Daly confirms the post-christian nature of her theology when she affirms that “the disease of sin-obsession and anti-sexuality has spread from the roots to the branches of theology.”³⁴ For her “theology is comparable to an organism: a disease affecting one part quickly spreads to another part.”³⁵ Using her own metaphor it is safe to conclude that her brand of theology is a serious infection of theology as she redefines sin to mean “to be.”³⁶ Simply stated Daly holds “that the misogynism of Christian theology is deep rooted and that merely removing symptoms will not cure the disease.”³⁷

View of Revelation

Rather than the traditional understanding of revelation as static or closed Daly favors theories that perceive “revelation as an ongoing reality.”³⁸ She writes that her book Beyond God “is saying that to assert the ‘centrality of Christ’ is to compromise revelation, the living revelation that is happening in the lives of women breaking through to consciousness now.”³⁹ She believes this is necessary in order

to create the theological atmosphere . . . necessary to develop an understanding of the Incarnation which goes beyond the regressive, sin-obsessed view of human life which colored so much of theology in the past.⁴⁰

Daly finds error in the Scriptures because

the authors of both the Old and New Testaments were men of their times, and it would be naïve to think that they were free of the prejudices of their epochs. It is therefore a most dubious process to construct an idea of ‘feminine nature’ or of ‘God’s plan for women’ from biblical texts. As one theologian expressed it: ‘Let us be careful not to transcribe into terms of nature that which is written in terms of history.’⁴¹

Daly believes “that language develops and changes in the development of history,”⁴² and that “deception is embedded in the very texture of the words we use, and here is where our exorcism can begin.”⁴³ She is consistent on this point admitting that she has “changed [her] vocabulary to a great extent.”⁴⁴ This change became so great that she had to create her own dictionary, Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, so that she could share the meaning of words which she had stripped of their patriarchal meanings. In fact the Wickedary contains a key enabling the reader to track the evolution of Daly’s vocabulary throughout her various works.⁴⁵

The later Daly is so far removed from having a view of revelation that would be recognizable to any evangelical that it is hard to consider her opinions seriously if they had not become so widespread. She is leading a revolution against none other than the Father, Himself. According to her it is “women [themselves] who will have to expel the Father from [themselves], becoming [their] own exorcists.”⁴⁶

‘The way back to reality is to destroy our perceptions of it’. . . these deceptive perceptions were/are implanted through language —the all-pervasive language of myth, conveyed overtly and subliminally through religion, ‘great art,’ literature, the dogmas of professionalism, the media, grammar. Indeed, deception is embedded in the very texture of the words we use, and here is where our exorcism can begin.⁴⁷

Other Pertinent Epistemological Matters

Daly finds that the essence of women, as created in the image of God, is not upheld throughout the Old Testament, where “women emerge as subjugated and inferior beings.”⁴⁸ For example “infidelity on the part of the man was punished only if he violated the rights of another man by taking a married women,”⁴⁹ while the women were severely punished. The only way that the status of women is ever increased in the Old Testament is through motherhood. Furthermore, Daly finds that the Church Fathers

display a strongly disparaging attitude toward women, at times a fierce misogynism. There is the recurrent theme that by faith a woman transcends the limitations imposed by her sex. It would never occur to the Fathers to say the same of a man. When woman achieves this transcendence which is, of course, not due to her own efforts but is a ‘supernatural’ gift, she is given the compliment of being called ‘man’. Thus there is an assumption that all that is of dignity and value in human nature is proper to the male sex.⁵⁰

She declares “that the churches have been the murderers of women,”⁵¹ but finds the first seeds of feminist friendly doctrine, interestingly enough, in the work of a churchman, Thomas Aquinas.⁵² Unfortunately due to social and cultural conditioning Aquinas could not recognize these doctrines. In the Middle Ages there were cases of powerful women found in the ranks of nuns and abbesses.⁵³ In the case of abbesses legal judgements were given “just as bishops did.”⁵⁴ From these isolated cases Daly finds evidence of oppression rather than proof that even during times of societal oppression rare opportunities for progress did exist through the church. When reading some of her latest works one wonders if Daly’s favorable impression with at least small portions of the Middle Ages culture milieu may provide a partial explanation of her fascination with, and apparent acceptance of, Wicca and “the Old Religion”⁵⁵ of this time.

Soteriology

Salvation is reformulated in feminist theology to become “the healing of broken relationships and as mutuality and reciprocity in relation to God and others.”⁵⁶ According to Daly “the first salvific moment for any women comes when she perceives the reality of her ‘original sin,’ that is, internalization of blame and guilt.”⁵⁷ She and her compatriots declare that their “revolution . . . is not ‘losing oneself’ for a cause but living for oneself.”⁵⁸ In fact Daly suggests that “God who is the judge of ‘sin,’”⁵⁹ is in fact an idol which must be overturned.

Daly’s View of the Gospel

Mary Daly is a mission-minded author who is attempting to convert society to her point of view. Unfortunately she is attempting to overthrow the truth and replace it with her own self actualized “spiritual consciousness.”⁶⁰ She believes that the means with which one affirms commitment have changed, and that this is acceptable since “God himself—Being-itself—is unfathomable abyss.”⁶¹ She writes “at this point in history, it may well be that the way in which a Christian can suitably express his commitment to truth will be radically different from the way of another generation.”⁶² It becomes clear that Daly’s quest for faith is the opposite of what evangelicals consider faithful to orthodoxy. She has reversed everything so that yes is no, up is down, sin is good, and faith can as easily be atheistic.⁶³ She proposes that “one cannot ‘lose one’s faith’ by being true to his own mind: honesty and courage are demanded by faith itself, no matter where this may lead, even if it be to the apparent negation of faith.”⁶⁴ What Daly seems to be striving for is a self centered “passion for transcendence [and] desire for social justice.”⁶⁵ This is removed from any approximation of Christian faith and is increasingly redefined by terms that come from “the Old Religion.”⁶⁶

Daly further proposes that Jesus has been made an idol by Christians⁶⁷ who have a mistaken idea of salvation and original sin because they are unable to see beyond the patriarchal elements of faith. In fact she writes that “the Christ symbol is a uniquely male symbol for divinity, it is oppressive. It says: ‘For men only.’”⁶⁸ She believes that the women’s movement is removing these myths one at a time and moving beyond the mistaken ideas of the past.

Daly’s View of Evangelism and Missions

Daly writes that “in such an era as ours . . . it is hardly possible to speak of Christian mission as if our frame of reference were at all similar to that of another generation.”⁶⁹ The intention of her missions methodology is to accomplish two goals. First, she desires an exchange of ideas with those who hold different views and beliefs, and second, she seeks collaboration with all who are concerned with matters of social justice regardless of their religious beliefs.⁷⁰ Daly has once more given a new interpretation to a traditionally Christian concept when she writes,

the word ‘mission’ is essentially wrong because it one-sidedly stresses [communication]. The communication involved is not a thrusting of an objectified ‘message’ to another nor a thrusting of oneself or any model upon the psyche of another. Insofar as there is ‘sending’ at all it is mutual—an interpenetration of insights coming from discovery of participation together in being, in the cosmos.⁷¹

Ecclesiology

Mary Daly’s concept of church is so radical that it is difficult for evangelical Christians to recognize or take seriously. It seems to contain a mixture of her idea of reversal, hence naming it anti-church, with a large influence from Wicca. She writes of a covenant community but makes clear that the idea behind this is the Wicca “coven” and has preferred covenant only because the idea of a coven was limited by number to thirteen.⁷² Her sisterhood of cosmic covenant is based on an agreement that is found within the individuals who form the group. This grouping will be more than churches could have been, moving beyond Christian tradition to “a new beginning, new Be-ing.”⁷³ In her earlier writings Daly had suggested that this sisterhood would have three important characteristics. It would be a space set apart, an exodus community, and charismatic community.⁷⁴ As a space set apart Daly had in mind a place where one might escape to reflect on life and remove oneself to a “sacred canopy.”⁷⁵ As an exodus community the church is moving out of bondage to ever expanding areas of liberation. Thus it is the responsibility of the church to shepherd the processes within society that will lead to liberation from all forms of oppression. Since the oppression of women is the root of all other oppressions it is the place where liberation must begin. The church is also viewed by Daly as a charismatic community where gifts such as “healing and prophecy are experienced.”⁷⁶ The healing Daly has in mind is institutional. She is promoting an act of “self healing that happens if we bond with our sisters and continue to say to ourselves and with each other, ‘I am,’ ‘We are.’”⁷⁷ The prophecy she is speaking out against is the society that has dominated and oppressed women. The method of the speech which she encourages others to employ is what she calls reversal. “This is the attempt to change ordinary language on the basis of a very ordinary extraordinary revelation.”⁷⁸ Thus, you will hear words such as anti-church, antichrist, and non-being. These are all attempts to get beyond the patriarchy. Through naming, Daly hopes to unleash the creative power that will enable the creation of a new reality which is free from all the baggage of the past and present. For instance she believes that by “renaming good and evil . . . the living process of transvaluating values, the women’s movement [becomes] revelatory.”⁷⁹

Daly suggests that “the term anti-church must be understood in a positive way. It is bringing forth into the world of New Being, which . . .annihilates the credibility of myths”⁸⁰ It is needed because the biblical image of “the church as the ‘bride of Christ’”⁸¹ oppresses women serving as an extension of the authority of “Jesus, . . . the God-Man.”

Daly is in search of a new community. This “community requires. . .radical communication with oneself, [extending]. . . beyond the magic closed circle of true believers,”⁸² where others are invited in new ways.

The expansion of the new space of women’s awareness, then, is not an imperialist expansion that pushes back the territory of others. Rather, insofar as it is where being is discovered in confrontation with nothingness, it is an invitation to others to leave the patriarchal space of alienative identity—the sacred circle of eternal return— and enter new space.⁸³

This new sisterhood’s role is to be activist within society. Daly and her allies are willing to engage society through books, media, protests, and any means possible to break down obstacles and expose oppressiveness. The war as they see it is for the minds of the masses where the ultimate liberation will occur. Daly is convinced that culture will be reborn as a result of the women’s movement and that this will permeate throughout society allowing all oppressed groups the opportunity to be freed from the tyrants once and for all.

Critical Evaluation

Daly has acted in her own self interest. Since God has allowed society to proceed and prosper while being unjust to her and all women, she refuses to accept God or his corrupted society. She must have a god, however, therefore she has invented one which she will allow to rule over her and the society which she will fashion. Thus to the god of her own making, and subject to her further revisions, she will be true hoping to find her own fulfilled state of being.

It is accurate to state that Daly is rebelling against God the Father. It is particularly poignant in light of her favorable impression of Wicca to remind oneself that the Scripture says that “the sin of rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”⁸⁴ Daly has determined society to be wrongly aligned and has affixed the blame to God. Therefore she is attempting to remove God so that she may realign society in a more equitable manner. She admits that as early as during the writing of Beyond God, she “was becoming other than christian”⁸⁵ She is reaching “for a truly ecumenical, universal, authentic ground for hope. The ‘God before us’ should be envisioned as the completion, not the rejection of the God within us.”⁸⁶ Mary Daly is fulfilling the prophecy of the Scriptures:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.⁸⁷

Daly and those who seek to reverse the clear teaching of the Bible have rejected all but what they desire. Therefore it is incumbent on all evangelical Christians to reject her work as theology because it clearly is not the study of the God we serve. It must be debated and disputed apologetically as one would Buddhism or any other pagan religion.

Daly is inconsistent, however, in her attack on the person of Jesus as for the male only on the one hand and her desire to exalt his example in dealing with women on the other. She admits that Jesus “was remarkably free of prejudice against women and treated them as equals insofar as the limitations of his culture would allow, it is certain that he would be working with them [women] for their liberation today.”⁸⁸ If therefore Jesus would be working for women’s liberation today why then is Daly working so hard to undermine him? One could conclude by Daly’s remarks that Jesus is the friend of the oppressed. Thus her stubborn refusal to accept his divinity while appealing to his humanity is misplaced.

Evangelicals may disagree with the basic conclusions of feminism, especially radical feminism, but it is impossible to deny that their ideas have impacted our society. The move to be more inclusive in our language and the preeminence of tolerance for all oppressed groups above all other attributes are indications of feminist successes. With regard to the struggle for more inclusive language one may conclude that feminists like Daly have claimed significant ground. The evidence of this is clear when one notes that a conservative evangelical institution such as “The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary” now include a section on “Gender Language” for students in its manual of style.⁸⁹ More significant still is the fact that this section is pulled “verbatim from the Corporate Editorial Manual of Lifeway Christian Resource,” the Southern Baptists own publishing arm. Further evidence of the influences of the feminist agenda within conservative bastions such as the Southern Baptist Convention may be found in the revised Baptist Faith and Message’s language which opens the door for women to minister in all but senior pastor roles,’⁹⁰ a position that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable.

Although Daly denies it she and her other feminist crones are guilty of simply reversing the roles and labels of society to effectuate “their turn” in positions of power. She is correct to point out the oppression of women in society throughout history, but her radical assault on God denies her and all truly oppressed persons the healing they seek because they refuse to accept the one who heals. It is correct that evangelicals must denounce oppressive regimes and challenge genuine oppression by refusing to participate with it, but we must also refuse to be silent while lies are told concerning our God and his plan for mankind. We must also act proactively in society by showing up on the public square and presenting the truth so that the lie may be exposed.

Another front on which this heresy can and should be attacked is its blatant attack on Christ. The power of the gospel is real and should be proclaimed without regard of these philosophical attacks. Steps taken recently by the S.B.C. to rewrite The Baptist Faith and Message are consistent with the methods that must be utilized. Restating our beliefs so that they may be clearly understood is important, providing these restatements are done in a context that supports and affirms the reality of the Scriptures and the centrality of Christ. The potential for restatements to be confused by some in our culture as redefinition is real and must be avoided. Dialogue with these groups must be done as apologetics and never through a misinterpreted view of unity or ecumenism. Great care must be exercised in this regard because Daly’s record reveals her tactic of using the credibility of the church, Christianity, or theology to gain an audience in order to speak against Christ.

Mary Daly will join the long line of liberal theologians whose studies have led them to deny the faith. Her theories are fanciful and hard to take seriously but they may endanger persons who feel oppressed. We must not allow ourselves to mistakenly think that we can save the world. Only Christ will save man and only the power of his gospel can truly free the captive. We must not ignore Daly and others who sit on the radical fringe, but we must not make too much of them either so that we become deterred from our primary mission of evangelization. The church has overcome heresies in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Evangelicals should attempt to be more aware of social injustices in order to prevent the realities which have given rise to the various liberation theologies. Perceptions by the oppressed that the Church does not care should be erased by action and attention from the churches. All areas where the obscenity of sin is prevalent in society, whether displayed in pornography, overpriced tenement housing, or the mistreatment of women and children must be faithfully addressed. Continued failure by the Church to speak prophetically against sin and its effects in all of society will continue to give opportunities to Daly and others to take advantage of our silence and misrepresent our Lord.

End Notes

1. Women-writers.com “Mary Daly” [on-line], Accessed 14 November 2000.  Available from http://womanandmoney.com/mary_daly/author.html;Internet.

2. Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex. (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1968), 8.

3. Mary Daly, “Sin Big.” The New Yorker (Feb 26, 1996): 76.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., 77. “The title of this volume, published in 1914, was What Every Ice Cream Dealer Should Know.”

6. Ibid., 76.

7. Ibid., 77.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid. “I was unable to find myself a suitable teaching position, and found myself marooned for five years at a mediocre college in Brookline, Massachusetts.”

10. Ibid.

11. Women-writers.com “Mary Daly,” 3.

12. Mary Daly, “Women and the Church.” Commonweal 79 (1964): 603.

13. Daly, The Church and the Second Sex, 9.

14. Daly, The Church and the Second Sex, 10.

15. Daly. “Sin Big,” 78.

16. Daly, The Church and the Second Sex, 11-13.

17. Daly. “Sin Big,” 79.

18. Ibid., 79.

19. Daly argued that a male presence inhibited class discussion. Boston College said her actions violated title IX of federal law requiring the College to ensure that no person was excluded from an education program on the basis of sex, and of their University’s non-discrimination policy which insisted all courses be open to male and female students. In 1998, Daly absented herself from classes rather than admit the male students. Boston College removed her tenure rights, and cited a verbal agreement by Daly to retire. She brought suit against the college disputing violation of her tenure rights and claimed she was forced out against her will, but her request for an injunction was denied by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sosman. An out-of-court settlement was reached in which Daly agreed that she had retired from her faculty position. Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students. She documented her account of the events in the 2006 book, Amazon Grace: Recalling the Courage to Sin Big.

20. Mary Daly, “Autobiographical Preface to the Colophon Edition” in The Church and the Second Sex: With a New Feminist Postchristian Introduction by the Author. (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975), 5.

21. Ibid.

22. Daly. “Sin Big,” 79.  “In order to give the ‘sermon,’ which would be a springboard for a walkout, I was obliged to sit in the sanctuary during the first part of the service. Misogynist scriptural passages were read . . . thus paving the way for my anti-sermon.  I mounted the steps to the gigantic, phalluslike pulpit, and as I fervently hoped afterward I would not have to endure the humiliation of being alone, except for six or seven staunch comrades, as I stalked out of the church.  But the moment I finished, hundreds of women and some of the men began stampeding out of the church.  By the time I managed to run down the steps of the enormous pulpit, half of the ‘flock’ were pushing ahead of me.  I just joined the crowd.”  See also;  Mary Daly. Beyond God The Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1973) 144-45.

23. Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1978)17-18. “The Tree of Life has been replaced by the necrophilic symbol of a dead body hanging on a dead wood.  The Godfather insatiably demands more sacrifices, and the fundamental sacrifices of sadospiritual religion are female.” See also, Mary Daly. Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 152-158.

24. Arlene Getz, “No Men Allowed” Newsweek (Feb 27-28 1999) [on-line], accessed 14 November 2000. available from http://newsweek.org/nw-srv/issue/09_99a/tnw/today/ps/;Internet. “Daly—a radical philosopher and author of books including ‘Outercourse’ — is defying administration orders to admit male students to her ethics course.  The 70-year-old feminist insists her class on ‘atrocities perpetuated against women and nature in patriarchal society’ should only be open to women, because men would distract them. . . .‘the young women would be constantly on an overt or a subliminal level giving their attention to the men because they’ve been socialized to nurse men,’ Daly has traditionally dealt with the problem of men wanting to join her class by taking a leave of absence until they go away.  This time, however, senior Duane Naquin not only refused to bow out; he threatened to sue for discrimination. . . . Boston College officials responded by telling Daly— again — that she was contravening both college policy and federal law if she did not make her classes co-ed.  Daly’s response was to take another leave of absence last month.  The school now hopes she’ll bow out gracefully.  ‘Right now she’s in violation of her contractual obligation,’ said Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn.  ‘Our sense is her only option is to retire.’  But is this the end of Daly’s long and ground breaking academic career?  Right now, neither the professor nor her lawyer is saying.”

25. Daly, Church and the Second Sex, 10.    By “essence of women” Daly is asking if woman is also created in the image of God?  By “role of women” Daly is suggesting that her value and worth have historically been found only through her reproductive organs, and her position relative to her husband.

26. Ibid., 180.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 182.

29. Mary Daly.  Beyond God The Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1973) 13.

30. Ibid., 6.

31. Mary Daly. Beyond God The Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1973) 7.

32. Anne Carr, “Feminist Theology,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, ed. Alister E. McGrath, (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 220.

33. Mary Daly,  Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1978) 3.

34. Daly, Church and the Second Sex, 185.

35. Ibid., 179.

36. Daly. “Sin Big,” 76. “The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’”

37. Mary Daly, “Feminist Postchristian Introduction” in The Church and the Second Sex: With a New Feminist Postchristian Introduction by the Author. (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1975), 37.

38. Mary Daly, “Return of the Protestant Principle.” Commonweal 90 (Jun 6, 1969): 341.

39. Mary Daly. “A Short Essay on Hearing and the Qualitative Leap of Radical Feminism.” Horizons 2 (1975): 121.

40. Daly, Church and the Second Sex, 185.

41. Ibid., 74-75.

42. Daly. Beyond God The Father, 2.

43. Daly,  Gyn/Ecology, 3.

44. Mary Daly. “Original Reintroduction,” in Beyond God The Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985) xiii (note).

45. Mary Daly. Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987) 59-60.

46. Daly,  Gyn/Ecology, 2.

47. Ibid., 3.

48. Daly, Church and the Second Sex, 75.

49. Ibid., 76.

50. Ibid., 89.

51. Daly, Beyond God The Father, 146.

52. Daly, Church and the Second Sex, 95.  “The deep roots of Thomas’s thought—his philosophical conceptions of the body-soul relationship, of intellect, of will, of the person, and his theological ideas of the image of God in the human being and of man’s last end—clearly support the genuine equality of men and women with all of its practical and theoretical consequences.”

53. Ibid., 76.  There were many women who from the time of the Middle Ages forward began to question the old order of things and to exert themselves.  Among these were “the abbesses of St Cecilia and Las Huelgas” (96-97), “Teresa of Avila” (98-100) and “Angela Merici (1474-1540), founder of the Ursulines who were the first no to be bound by cloister” (103), and “Mary Ward” (1585-1645) who founded the ‘English Ladies’ who were a first order that was bound only to the Pope.  She wrote “there is no . . . difference between men and women that women may not do great things, as we have seen by the example of many saints . . . And if they would not make us believe we can do nothing, and that we are but women, we might do great matters” (104).

54. Ibid., 96.

55. Ibid., 47.

56. Anne Carr “Feminist Theology.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, ed. Alister E. McGrath, (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996) 225.

57. Daly. Beyond God The Father, 49.

58. Ibid., 144.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid., 31.

61. Mary Daly.  “Christian Mission After the Death of God,” In Demands for Christian Renewal. Ed. William J. Wilson, (New York: Maryknoll, 1968) 10.

62. Ibid., 6.

63. Ibid., 2.

64. Ibid., 9.

65. Ibid.,  18.

66. Daly, Beyond God The Father, 47.

67. Ibid., 71.

68. Mary Daly. “A Short Essay on Hearing and the Qualitative Leap of Radical Feminism.” Horizons 2 (1975): 121.

69. Daly, “Christian Mission,” 4.

70. Ibid., 16.

71. Daly, Beyond God The Father. 168.

72. Mary Daly. “Radical Feminism; The Spiritual Revolution” (Sophia Lyon Fahs Lecture presented at the annual meeting of the Liberal Religious Education Directors Association, June 28, 1974), 4.

73. Ibid.

74. Daly, Beyond God The Father, 156-162.

75. Ibid., 156.

76. Ibid., 160.

77. Daly. “Radical Feminism”, 4.

78. Ibid., 5.

79. Daly, “A Short Essay,” 120-124.

80. Daly, Beyond God The Father. 139.

81. Ibid.

82. Mary Daly. “Return of the Protestant Principle.” Commonweal 90 (Jun 6, 1969): 341.

83. Daly, Beyond God The Father, 168.

84. 1 Samuel 15:23.  The King James Version. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

85. Mary Daly. Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 153.

86. Mary Daly. “The Problem of Hope.” Commonweal 92 (Jun 26, 1970): 314-317.

87. 2 Timothy. 4:3-4. New American Standard Version.

88. Mary Daly. “After the Death of God the Father: Women’s Liberation and the Transformation of Christian Consciousness.” Commonweal (March 12, 1971):10.

89. “Gender Language,” in The Southern Seminary Manual of Style, ed. Craig A. Blaising (Louisville: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000), 97-99. “Use the most accurate and inclusive term. . . .Homemakers would be an improvement over housewives, but consumers is even more inclusive.  The word man . . . to denote not only an adult male person but also people of both sexes and all ages. . . .is still acceptable to many people; however, an increasing number prefer words that clearly refer to all people . . . . Here are some alternative expressions. . . .As a general rule, try to find alternative expressions for the personal pronouns he, him, and his when one of these is used to refer to a hypothetical person . . . Sometimes, however, using one of these pronouns in a generic sense is the best option. . . .Reword to eliminate unnecessary gender pronouns. . . .Replace the masculine pronoun with ‘one,’ ‘you,’ ‘he or she.’  Use the last expression very sparingly.”

90. “Report of the Baptist Faith and Message Study Committee to the Southern Baptist Convention” [on-line], Accessed 22 November 2000.  Available from http://sbc.net/2000-bf_m.html; Internet. “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”