As we enter into the final days and hours before the Parliament of Religions in Melbourne, Australia, we would like to take some time to reflect on the work ahead.  The 2009 Parliament will be ripe with challenge and promise and we will engage this opportunity by considering the interreligious movement as a whole.

We are happy to share this series of five articles to help attendees prepare for their Parliament experience.

Our third article, written by Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether is titled Religion and the Continued Discrimination Against Women.  It opens with a critique of presumptions that discrimination against women has ended in spiritual and secular spheres.  The article presents the evidence of ongoing discrimination and argues for the hope of progress in such programs as the Parliament’s “Overcoming Poverty in a Patriarchal World.”

Dr. Ruether is the Carpenter Emerita Professor of Feminist Theology at Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union, and the Georgia Harkness Emerita Professor of Applied Theology at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.  Her many writings include America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation & Imperial Violence, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and others.  Please read her full article here.