Frontiers in Catholic Feminist Theology: Shoulder to Shoulder

by Susan Abraham, LaReine-Marie Mosely, Elena Procario-Foley (Afterword)

What does it mean to be a Catholic woman with feminist commitments today, and what insights can be garnered from that context? In this first attempt in a generation at a collective framework for Catholic feminist theology, a group of theologians formulate a new contextual approach to and criteria for systematic theology and apply those insights as they tackle three key topics: Theological Anthropology, Christology, and Ecclesiology.
Key to their endeavor is specific focus on contemporary discipleship, a special cricitcal methodology and relationship to the Catholic Christian tradition, and a specific sensitivity to academic and ecclesial hegemonies. The result in each case is an honest exploration of the tradition, a contextualization of the locus in the lives of women today, and an attempt at a constructive vision with which to move forward.
Contributors: Susan Abraham, Rosemary Carbine, Teresa Delgado, Elizabeth Groppe, Jeanine Hill-Fletcher, Elena Procario-Foley, Michele Saracino, and Laura Taylor.

Genres: Feminism, Theology, Christianity

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Susan Abraham is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at St. Bonaventure University.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up before a train ride home because I wanted to avoid thinking about a work problem. I didn’t know what to expect of it, but it seemed like my sort of subject matter and I thought it would distract me from feeling sad. I vaguely hoped it would be good, considering that it was the work of feminist Christians. I want my people to represent themselves well. I certainly didn’t anticipate loving it as much as I did.

There was so much content that I found engrossing, uplifting, and informative, but the major highlight I’d like to discuss here is female scholarship.

Christian non-fiction that is FILLED with scholarly work by actual WOMEN! As a protestant woman who moves in largely conservative circles, that’s not always easy to find. I once saw a book on the philosophy of Christian music written by a woman in our church bookstore, and there’s Elisabeth Elliot and Susanna Wesley, and well, that’s pretty much it. Women's non-fiction in Christian bookstores has a tendency to lean on women's living. It's not that those books are bad to have, but they are not an adequate picture of women's thoughts, and they are not exactly fodder for women to dig much deeper into what makes their culture what it is.

I shouldn’t be surprised that, with such sparse evidence of deeper contributions by women, when I hear my fellow Christians voice the assumption that women are legitimately inferior thinkers or peripheral to men in the church, but it does surprise me. I read an article the other day by a writer/pastor who declared that, since women are naturally more merciful than men (not sure what he based that on), they tended to be more gullible than men (not sure how the one leads to the other). He furthered this to say that the lack of males and high population of single motherhood in the church made one of the major contributing reasons for the proliferation of bad theology and scams in church leadership. Church scams come, in part, from churches full of husbandless women. Because the Bible never associates wisdom with femininity and simplicity with masculinity (cough cough). At a time when the word “representation” is being used and the power of it is being seen, I yearn to see more of this type of leadership from the silent half of our community. Female writers exist! And they talk about subjects that are varied, just like men! I dearly wish for the little girls growing up around me to see this too. Maybe instead of envisioning the normal life as one where they default to having someone else explain the sermon to them, they will begin to know they must take responsibility for Jesus’ mandate to his followers that they be wise. Maybe the little boys who grow up around our churches could start to shun the fetishizing of the helpless homemaker archetype. Maybe they could grow up assuming that they must meet the Lord in the Scriptures based on their need to know him, not on their need to fulfill a Christian-themed caricature of manhood.

The book is structured around twelve shortish essays that focus on theological anthropology, Christology, and ecclesiology. Each section is followed by a summary and series of talking points. Some address positive action in the church, some address radical new ideas, some address historical considerations. The writing quality and readability of each author varied, but each essay gave me something valuable to consider, and by the time I finally started underlining and taking notes, I wished I had done so all along.

I’ll definitely read these essays again.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat uneven collection of essays.