New Feminist Christianity

María Pilar Aquino is professor of theology and religious studies at the Universityof San Diego. Dr. Aquino was a visiting professor of theology at HarvardDivinity School. She is the author of Our Cry for Life: Feminist Theologyfrom Latin America; La teología, la iglesia y la mujer en América Latina (Theology,the Church and Women in Latin America); and Teología feminista Latinoamericana(Latin American Feminist Theology). She organizes and convenesLatina feminist scholars and activists in religion.Rachel A. R. Bundang is on the religious studies faculty at the MarymountSchool in New York. Dr. Bundang earned her doctorate in constructive theologies,praxis, and ethics from Union Theological Seminary. She was a BannanFellow at Santa Clara University. Rooted in feminist ethics and Catholictheology, Rachel's work takes her from the academy to the parish and beyond.Wanda Deifelt is associate professor of religion at Luther College in Decorah,Iowa. She is an ordained pastor of the Lutheran Church in Brazil (IECLB).Dr.Deifelt taught at Escola Superior de Teologia in São Leopoldo, Brazil, from1991–2004, where she held the Chair of Feminist Theology. She writes andlectures widely on liberation topics.Marie M. Fortune is founder and senior analyst at the FaithTrust Institute, whereshe addresses sexual and domestic violence in faith communities. The Rev. Dr.Fortune is ordained in the United Church of Christ. She is a pastor, an educator,an author, and a practicing theologian and ethicist. Her books include Keepingthe Faith: Guidance for Christian Women Facing Abuse; Is Nothing Sacred? WhenSex Invades the Pastoral Relationship; and Sexual Violence: The Sin Revisited.Mary E. Hunt is a Catholic feminist theologian active in the women-church movement. Dr. Hunt lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to liberation issues. She is editor of A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (Palgrave), among many other publications.Hunt and Neu are cofounders and codirectors of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER), a feminist educational center dedicated to creating and sustaining inclusive communities in society and religion, in Silver Spring, Maryland.W. Anne Joh is associate professor of theology at Garrett-Evangelical TheologicalSeminary. Dr. Joh's research interests lie at the intersection of postcolonialtheory, feminist theology, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and critical raceand queer theories.Her latest project is postcolonial theological anthropologyin conversation with feminist theology and Gayatri Spivak, Giorgio Agamben,Jan Mohammed, and Michele Foucault.Eunjoo Mary Kim is associate professor of homiletics and director of the Doctorof Ministry program at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, andis an ordained Presbyterian minister. Dr. Kim has written numerous articlesand has published three books, Preaching the Presence of God: A Homileticfrom the Asian American Perspective; Women Preaching: Theology and PracticeThrough the Ages; and Preaching in an Age of Globalization.Kwok Pui-lan is the William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spiritualityat Episcopal Divinity School. Dr. Kwok's many publications includePostcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology and Introducing Asian FeministTheology. She has edited Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North AmericanWomen’s Religion and Theology and Empire and the Christian Tradition: NewReadings of Classical Theologians. She is active in professional societies, includingthe American Academy of Religion, where she was elected as president.Cynthia Lapp is pastor at Hyattsville Mennonite Church in Maryland. Shestudied music at Eastern Mennonite University and theology at Wesley TheologicalSeminary. Music is a central mode of her ministry. Social justice concernsshape her work in the broader community as well as in Mennonitecircles.Shelly Matthews is the Dorothy and B. H. Peace Jr. Associate Professor ofReligion at Furman University. The Reverend Matthews is ordained in theDakotas Area Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is the authorof First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in EarlyJudaism and Christianity and Perfect Martyr: The Stoning of Stephen and theConstruction of Christian Identity.Virginia Ramey Mollenkott is actively retired after forty-four years of universityteaching where she specialized in Milton and seventeenth-century poetry.A pioneerfeminist and LGBTQ activist, Dr. Mollenkott has published hundreds ofarticles and numerous books, most recently the updated versions of her groundbreakingworks Omnigender and Sensuous Spirituality. She leads workshops atchurches and retreat centers, including Kirkridge in Bangor, Pennsylvania.Eleanor Moody-Shepherd is vice president of academic affairs, academicdean, and professor of women's studies at New York Theological Seminary.The Rev. Dr.Moody-Shepherd is a clergywoman who pastors a church that ispart of the Presbyterian Church USA. She mentors women in the academyand the church. She is engaged in struggle against all of the "isms" that continueto divide and leave scars on bodies and souls.Surekha Nelavala received her doctorate from Drew University. Dr. Nelavala'sdissertation is titled Liberation beyond Borders: Dalit Feminist Hermeneuticsand Four Gospel Women. She engages in biblical scholarship as a way of doingjustice work. She is the author of Paradigms of Authority in the New Testament:Women’s Perspective, as well as articles in international journals.Diann L. Neu is a feminist liturgist and minister, spiritual director and psychotherapist. Dr. Neu is the author of Return Blessings: Ecofeminist Liturgies Renewing the Earth and Women's Rites: Feminist Liturgies for Life's Journeys. She designs liturgies for faith and justice communities, especially the women-church movement.Hunt and Neu are cofounders and codirectors of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER), a feminist educational center dedicated to creating and sustaining inclusive communities in society and religion, in Silver Spring, Maryland.Kate M. Ott is a Christian ethicist and activist. Dr. Ott educates and writescurricula for faith communities on issues of sexuality, childhood/adolescence,and moral decision making. Dr. Ott is coauthor of the second edition ofA Time to Speak: Faith Communities and Sexuality Education. She wrote the"Sexuality Education Curricula for Faith Communities: An Annotated Bibliography."Her current writing project is a book, Sexuality, Faith, and Family:Talking to Our Children from Toddlers to Teens.Nancy Pineda-Madrid is assistant professor of theology and U.S. Latino/aministry at Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry. She holds adoctoral degree in systematic and philosophical theology from the GraduateTheological Union. Dr. Pineda-Madrid is working on a book that examinesthe problematic intersection of suffering and the quest for salvation from aLatina feminist perspective.Marjorie Procter-Smith is the LeVan Professor of Christian Worship at PerkinsSchool of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Dr. Procter-Smith is theauthor of In Her Own Rite: Constructing Feminist Liturgical Tradition; PrayingWith Our Eyes Open: Engendering Feminist Prayer; and The Church in HerHouse: A Feminist Emancipatory Prayer Book for Christian Communities.Meg A. Riley is senior minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship andhas served the Unitarian Universalist movement. The Reverend Riley is thefounding president of Faith in Public Life: A Resource Center for Justiceand the Common Good. She has served on dozens of committees andboards, including the Interfaith Alliance, Americans United for Separationof Church and State, Interfaith Worker Justice, and the Religious Coalitionfor Reproductive Choice.Victoria Rue is a theater writer/director, professor, and Roman Catholicwoman priest. Dr. Rue works as a spiritual care counselor with VNA/Hospicein Salinas, California. She is the author of Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogyin Religious Studies. She is an activist working for the transformation of theRoman Catholic Church as a woman and also as a lesbian. Her website iswww.victoriarue.com.Rosemary Radford Ruether taught for twenty-seven years at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Northwestern University and for six yearsat the Graduate Theological Union. Dr.Ruether is an emerita professor at Garrett-Evangelical and the Graduate Theological Union. She is the author or editor ofmore than forty books and numerous articles, including Sexism and God-Talk:Toward a Feminist Theology; Women-Church: Theology and Practice of FeministLiturgical Communities; and Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing.She teaches at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California.Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar. She is the editor of theEvangelical & Ecumenical Women's Caucus’s quarterly publication, ChristianFeminism Today. She is the cowriter with Kimberly B. George of the crossgenerationalChristian feminist blog 72-27, at www.eewc.com/72-27. She is theauthor or coauthor of numerous books, including, with Nancy Hardesty, AllWe’re Meant to Be, which helped launch the biblical feminist movement withinsecond-wave feminism, and Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? with VirginiaRamey Mollenkott, which opened the LGBTQ conversation among evangelicals.Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is the Krister Stendahl Professor at Harvard UniversityDivinity School and the founding coeditor of the Journal of FeministStudies in Religion. Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza's many books include The Power ofthe Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire and Democratizing Biblical Studies:Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space. Her groundbreaking In Memoryof Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins has beentranslated into many languages. She is active in the women-church movement.Deborah Sokolove is director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary, where she also serves as professor of art and worship. She writes and teaches on the relationship between the arts, culture and religious traditions. She is author of Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation between Artists, Theologians, and the Church.Jeanette Stokes is the founding director of the Center for Women and Ministryin the South and an ordained Presbyterian minster. Rev. Stokes is theauthor of Hurricane Season: Living Through a Broken Heart, a memoir aboutrecovering from divorce, and 25 Years in the Garden, a collection of essays. Shewrites, paints, dances, gardens, and leads workshops on women, spirituality,creativity, and social justice.Janet Walton is professor of worship at Union Theological Seminary in NewYork City. Dr. Walton focuses her research and teaching on ritual traditionsand practices in religious communities, with particular interest in artisticdimensions, feminist perspectives, and commitments to justice. Her booksinclude Art and Worship: A Vital Connection; Sacred Sound and Social Change,coedited with Lawrence Hoffman; Women at Worship: Interpretations of NorthAmerican Diversity, coedited with Marjorie Procter-Smith; and Feminist Liturgy:A Matter of Justice.Traci C.West is professor of ethics and African American studies at Drew UniversityTheological School. Dr. West is the author of Wounds of the Spirit: BlackWomen, Violence, and Resistance Ethics and Disruptive Christian Ethics: WhenRacism and Women's Lives Matter, and editor of Our Family Values: Same-sexMarriage and Religion. She is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.Gale A. Yee is Nancy W. King Professor of Biblical Studies at Episcopal DivinitySchool. Dr. Yee is the author of many articles, essays, and books, includingPoor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. She is currentlyworking on a book putting the Bible in the service of the U.N. MillenniumDevelopment Goals.

"Some of the best and most cutting-edge thinking…. Calls upon us to do together the hard yet hopeful work of dismantling sexism and domination—both within and among us—so that God's earth and all who dwell upon it can be saved."—Rev. Loey Powell, executive for Administration & Women’s Justice, United Church of Christ“Important and exciting…. A very banquet of ideas big enough to reinvigorate the life of the Spirit. More than that, it is a catalyst for the ongoing process of achieving it.”—Joan Chittister, OSB, co-chair, Global Peace Initiative of Women; author, Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men“Living proof that feminism has shaken the Christian patriarchal mindset to its core…. A must read for anyone interested in the future of Christianity in the twenty-first century.”—Maureen Fiedler, host, Interfaith Voices; editor, Breaking Through the Stained Glass Ceiling: Women Religious Leaders in Their Own Words“Demonstrates that feminist Christianity is far from monolithic; rather it is diverse, thoughtful, incisive, pastoral, prophetic and above all, deeply faithful.”—Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology, Yale University“With smarts, wit, and tantalizing moral vision, feminist movers and shakers illustrate how transforming patriarchy, religiously as well as socially, requires 'changing the subject,’ both the ‘who’ that speaks (and is listened to) and the ‘what’ that’s spoken about…. Truly nourishing bread for the journey.”—Rev. Marvin M. Ellison, PhD, Willard S. Bass Professor of Christian Ethics, Bangor Theological Seminary; co-editor, Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection“Both a rich, colorful sampler for those unfamiliar with feminist Christian work in the U.S. and an invitation to all of us to continue liberating Christianity from hegemonic ‘isms.’ This is a welcome resource for all who care about justice in the church and in the world.”—Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, coauthor, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire and Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States“What is new about New Feminist Christianity is the depth and breadth and scope—Diann Neu and Mary Hunt do not shy away from all the intersectionalities that feminism in the context of Christianity contains. The inclusion of such powerful, diverse voices that deal with body, art, and ministry, as well as rich crosscultural lenses, will make this a powerful, required text for anyone wanting to understand Christianity or feminism today!”—Rev. Nancy Wilson, moderator, Metropolitan Community Churches“Too often in monogendered theology, male eyes looked through the wrong end of the telescope and saw a world writ small. In this volume, womanspirit that has long been rising comes of age, and Christianity is dynamically reimagined. This is the real, not the fictive, radical orthodoxy.”—Daniel C. Maguire, professor of religious ethics, Marquette University“A rich mix of topics and perspectives that clearly conveys where feminist Christianity has been and where it needs to go.”—Judith Plaskow, author, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPART I FEMINIST THEOLOGICAL VISIONSA Postcolonial Feminist Vision for Christianity
KWOK PUI-LANFeminist Theology in Theological Education
ROSEMARY RADFORD RUETHERLatina Feminist Theology: Charting Future Discourse
NANCY PINEDA-MADRIDCrossing Borders: Feminist Christianity in Latin America
WANDA DEIFELTAnalysis, Interconnectedness, and Peacebuilding for a Just World
MARÍA PILAR AQUINORace, Class, Gender, Sexuality: Integrating the Diverse Politics of Identity into Our Theology
W. ANNE JOHWhy We Need Evangelical Feminists
LETHA DAWSON SCANZONIPART II FEMINIST SCRIPTURAL INSIGHTSWhere Are You Really From? An Asian American Feminist Biblical Scholar Reflects on Her GuildGALE A. YEECritical Feminist Biblical Studies: Remembering the Struggles, Envisioning the Future
ELISABETH SCHÜSSLER FIORENZAInclusivity and Distinctions: The Future of Dalit Feminist Biblical Studies
SUREKHA NELAVALAThe Future of Feminist Scripture Studies
SHELLY MATTHEWSPART III FEMINIST ETHICAL AGENDASWhat Does Antiracist Feminist Christian Social Ethics Look Like?
TRACI C. WESTTrans-forming Feminist Christianity
VIRGINIA RAMEY MOLLENKOTTSeeking Justice and Healing: Violence against Women as an Agenda for Feminist ChristianityMARIE M. FORTUNEFeminist Theo-ethics in Remix CultureRACHEL A. R. BUNDANG
Searching for an Ethic: Sexuality, Children, and Moral Agency
KATE M. OTTPART IV FEMINIST LITURGICAL AND ARTISTIC
FRONTIERSThe Feminist Face of God: Art and Liturgy
JEANETTE STOKESMore Than Words
DEBORAH SOKOLOVEFeminist Eucharists at Wisdom's Many Tables
DIANN L. NEUThe Road Is Made by Walking
JANET WALTON
This Is My Body
VICTORIA RUE"The Ones Who've Gone Before Us": The Future of Feminist Artistic and Liturgical LifeMARJORIE PROCTER-SMITHPART V FEMINIST MINISTERIAL CHALLENGESWomen in Ministry in a Postfeminist EraBARBARA BROWN ZIKMUNDAsian American Women and Renewal of Preaching
EUNJOO MARY KIMBalancing Power and Humility: Feminist Values in Mennonite Ministry
CYNTHIA LAPPOur Voices: Loud and ClearELEANOR MOODY-SHEPHERDNew Feminist Catholics: Community and Ministry
MARY E. HUNTSigns of Hope, Signs of DismayMEG A. RILEY 
Conclusion: Strengthening Our Resolve,
Moving Ever ForwardNotesSuggestions for Further ReadingIndex of Contributors