Women & Christianity. Edited by Cheryl A.Kirk-Duggan and Karen Jo Torjesen

Abstract

As one volume in a series on Women and Religion in the World, Women & Christianity historically contextualizes and compellingly critiques contemporary issues challenging Christian communities worldwide. Premising that a core and anchoring theme in Christianity is the quest for social justice through personal engagement and praxis theology, editors Kirk-Duggan and Torjesen selected fourteen essays and divided them thematically into five sections: Women, Family, Environment; Socioeconomics, Politics, Authority; Body, Mind, Spirit; Sex, Power, Vulnerability; and Women, Worldview, Religious Practice. The book engages the textual, the historical, and the personal narrative to give a sense of the roots in Christian Scripture. The result is an analytic mapping of what has denied women's full agency and autonomy as well as what has inspired feminists in Christianity. This is a diverse collection of the committed but critical voices of theologians, pastors, and activists working within a liberative faith paradigm. Those unfamiliar with feminist studies in Christianity may be surprised at the richness of the discussion, ranging from textual analyses of Proverbs in the Hebrew Scripture to a historical rendering of the medieval church and colonialist expansionism through to contemporary reflections on sexual violence, queer theory, poverty, illness, and Black women's activism in the environmental justice movement. Not only is a wide range of issues covered in this book, but some attention is given to representation as well. For instance, feminist critiques on the Korean and Caribbean cultures are refreshing in what is predominantly a North American rendering of Christian feminism. If any perspectives or examples could be added, it might be more from those who speak from a colonized perspective, such as Christian Aboriginal or Middle Eastern Christian communities. As each are examples of cultures that were colonized by Christendom, such narratives could provide an even wider range of considerations, such as how women negotiate between competing familial, religious, nationalist, and classist identities and loyalties. More examples of this nature would underscore the far-reaching extent of Christian feminism as well as highlight the need for postcolonial considerations of the intersections of race, gender, and religion.