Race and privilege are issues that cry out for new kinds of attention and healing in American society. More specifically, we are being called to surface the dynamics of whiteness especially in contexts where whites have had the most power in America. The church is one of those contexts--particularly churches that have traditionally been seen as the stalwarts of the American religious landscape: mainline Protestant churches. Theologians and Presbyterian ministers Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia Mount Shoop invite us to acknowledge and address the wounds of race and privilege that continue to harm and diminish the life of the church. Using Eucharist as a template for both the church's blindness and for Christ's redemptive capacity, this book invites faith communities, especially white-dominant churches, into new ways of re-membering what it means to be the body of Christ. In a still racialized society, can the body of Christ truly acknowledge and dress the wounds of race and privilege? Re-membering Christ's broken and betrayed body may be just the healing path we need.
The author shows the many ways in which women's scriptural "performances" are liberating. Shifting decisively from "women's experience" to discursive practices, she offers three sample readings of "emancipatory discourses" from diverse social locations that better display the variety of ways in which women are oppressed and resistant.
The primary aim of this book is to explore the contradiction between widely shared beliefs in the USA about racial inclusiveness and equal opportunity for all and the fact that most churches are racially homogeneous and do not include people with disabilities. To address the problem Mary McClintock Fulkerson explores the practices of an interracial church (United Methodist) that includes people with disabilities. The analysis focuses on those activities which create opportunities for people to experience those who are `different' as equal in ways that diminish both obliviousness to the other and fear of the other. In contrast with theology's typical focus on the beliefs of Christians, this project offers a theory of practices and place that foregrounds the instinctual reactions and communications that shape all groups. The effect is to broaden the academic field of theology through the benefits of ethnographic research and postmodern place theory.
Race and privilege are issues that cry out for new kinds of attention and healing in American society. More specifically, we are being called to surface the dynamics of whiteness especially in contexts where whites have had the most power in America. The church is one of those contexts--particularly churches that have traditionally been seen as the stalwarts of the American religious landscape: mainline Protestant churches. Theologians and Presbyterian ministers Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia Mount Shoop invite us to acknowledge and address the wounds of race and privilege that continue to harm and diminish the life of the church. Using Eucharist as a template for both the church's blindness and for Christ's redemptive capacity, this book invites faith communities, especially white-dominant churches, into new ways of re-membering what it means to be the body of Christ. In a still racialized society, can the body of Christ truly acknowledge and dress the wounds of race and privilege? Re-membering Christ's broken and betrayed body may be just the healing path we need.
Explores five ideas that animate the theological imagination of women in religious communities throughout America: ambivalence toward tradition; the immanence, or indwelling, of the divine; the sacredness of the ordinary and the ordinariness of the sacred; the vision of the universe as a web of relationships; and healing as a central function of religion"--back cover.
The author shows the many ways in which women's scriptural "performances" are liberating. Shifting decisively from "women's experience" to discursive practices, she offers three sample readings of "emancipatory discourses" from diverse social locations that better display the variety of ways in which women are oppressed and resistant.
The primary aim of this book is to explore the contradiction between widely shared beliefs in the USA about racial inclusiveness and equal opportunity for all and the fact that most churches are racially homogeneous and do not include people with disabilities. To address the problem Mary McClintock Fulkerson explores the practices of an interracial church (United Methodist) that includes people with disabilities. The analysis focuses on those activities which create opportunities for people to experience those who are `different' as equal in ways that diminish both obliviousness to the other and fear of the other. In contrast with theology's typical focus on the beliefs of Christians, this project offers a theory of practices and place that foregrounds the instinctual reactions and communications that shape all groups. The effect is to broaden the academic field of theology through the benefits of ethnographic research and postmodern place theory.
The authors argue that much of the research into later life has neglected ethnic and cultural variation. Their aim is to help us to understand what is important in older women's lives across a range of ethnic groups. They have certainly achieved this in what is a readable and detailed analysis of their findings. Highly recommended." Nursing Standard "…the first book to comprehensively examine the lives of older women from ethnic minorities in the UK as well as non-migrant White women. The authors draw on extensive qualitative research to provide novel ways of looking at the priorities and concerns of older women, providing insights into what enhances their quality of life. Mary Maynard and colleagues have written an outstanding book... Women in Later Life will be essential reading for students on undergraduate and postgraduate courses on gender, ethnicity and later life." Sara Arber, University of Surrey "…what is it like to be an older person and, particularly, an older woman? This carefully crafted and wide-ranging book seeks to answer this question…The book reminds us that age is a social construct, one which profoundly disadvantages women. For minority ethnic women, where this book makes an important contribution to a largely unexplored territory, the situation is even more dire. The authors have opened up a huge area of policy, demonstrating, despite the rhetoric of government, how badly we treat our elders." Professor Gary Craig, University of Hull Britain, along with other Western and industrialized countries, has an ageing population. We already live in one of the demographically oldest societies to have ever existed and the population is going to get older. By 2020 it is estimated that one third of the population will be aged over 50. Furthermore, older women outnumber older men, since men tend to die at a younger age than women. In the academic mainstream relatively little is known about older women from minority ethnic communities. This groundbreaking book is based on interviews and focus groups with women of different backgrounds and ethnicities whose lives illustrate the strength of character and optimism that have often enabled them to live through hard times but who, in general, view later life positively. In seeking to understand the relationships between age, gender and ethnicity, the authors focus on a number of key themes including: Family and networks Health and well being Religion, faith and spirituality Income, pensions and housing The meaning of identity and life course events Death and dying Women in Later Life will be key reading for students and practitioners with an interest in gender and/or issues surrounding later life.
In the 2004 Madeleva Lecture, Mary Ann Hinsdale uses the lens of her own life experience to tell the story of how visionary and prophetic women set in motion the important institutional structures that have allowed women to shape Catholic theology in North America over the past fifty years. She pays particular attention to issues and problems facing women theologians in the Catholic Church today, such as the implications of the changing demographics of women theologians; women's impact on the "theological establishment"; the reception of feminism and feminist theology by the hierarchy; and the unmet intercultural challenges posed by those "on the margins," as well as women theologians' response to them. Coming at the beginning of a new papacy, Hinsdale's compelling narrative is especially timely for a consideration of the future of women in the Catholic Church."--BOOK JACKET.
This monograph focuses on "Christian Goddess Spirituality" (CGS), the phenomenon of (mostly) women who combine Christianity and Goddess Spirituality, including Wicca/Witchcraft. Mary Ann Beavis’s study provides ethnographic data and analysis on the lived religious experience of CGS practitioners, drawing on interviews of over 100 women who self-identify as combining Christianity and Goddess spirituality. Although CGS also has implications for Goddess Spirituality and related traditions (e.g., Neopaganism, Wicca), here, CGS is considered primarily as a phenomenon within Christianity. However, the study also shows that the fusion of Christian and Goddess spiritualties has had an impact on non-Christian feminist spirituality, since Goddess-worshippers have often constructed Christianity as the diametrical opposite and enemy of the Goddess, to the point that some refuse to admit the possibility that CGS is a valid spiritual path, or that it is even possible. In addition, biblical, Jewish and Christian images of the divine such as Sophia, Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and even Mary Magdalene, have found their way into the "Pagan" Goddess pantheon. The main themes of the study include: overlaps and differences between Christian feminist theology and CGS; the routes to CGS for individual practitioners, and their beliefs, practices and experiences; proto-denominational classifications ("spiritual paths") within CGS; CGS thealogy (Christian discourse about the female divine); and the future of CGS in social scientific and ecclesiological context. Christian Goddess Spirituality will be of interest to scholars of religion, especially those with interests in women and religion, feminist spiritualities, feminist theology/thealogy, alternative spiritualities, New Religious Movements, and emergent Christianities.
Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice invites you to open your eyes, ears and hearts to your congregation. By listening to their stories you will not only find out who they are but help them to better claim whose they are. By studying the "texts" of your community, Mary Clark Moschella helps you to understand their "contexts." Moschella will inspire you through actual cases to be more prophetic and priestly in ministry. Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice will, in a step-by-step fashion, help you and your congregation to embrace change and celebrate transformation. This revised second edition incorporates new scholarship on qualitative methods in ethnographic research and their spreading application in seminaries, universities, and divinity schools. As Moschella writes in her reflection on the book fourteen years after the publication of the first edition: "The teaching and practice of qualitative research methods help shape new generations of religious professionals in respectful modes of disciplined inquiry, enabling practitioners to learn about and from the communities they serve." The revised edition includes two appendices by Steve Taylor and Ryan Juskus, respectively, that travel the trail of research blazed by the first edition of this book.
When Paul wrote First Thessalonians shortly after the recipients had accepted the Gospel, many significant issues had already arisen among them. Of great concern was the social complexity, and even persecution, they encountered because they had “turned to God from idols” (1:9). The countercultural stance of those earliest believers, and especially the impact that may have had for women, is addressed throughout this commentary. While Paul directs no remarks only to women in this letter, the ramifications of his preaching on their daily lives emerge vibrantly from the application of a feminist hermeneutics of suspicion to the text. While Second Thessalonians is a shorter letter, it has been disproportionately influential on Christian thought, especially apocalyptic doctrine and the “Protestant work ethic.” From a feminist perspective, it is androcentric, rhetorically manipulative, and even violent. In this commentary, Mary Ann Beavis and HyeRan Kim-Cragg explore this text from many angles to expose both constructive and destructive implications in the text. Notably, they suggest a perspective on the “afflictions” endured by the Thessalonian church that neither glorifies suffering nor wishes for revenge but rather sees the divine presence in women’s acts of compassion and care in circumstances of extreme duress and inhumanity. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God’s vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.
This annotated bibliography, a volume in the Greenwood series, Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies, provides access to the numerous writings, from the 1960s through the 1990s, on feminism and Christian tradition. Major feminist theologians and sociologists are represented. As a guide to further research, this cross-disciplinary approach presents themes and issues in both a historical and a topical framework. An extensive overview of feminism in relation to the women's movement, women's studies, sociology and American religion introduces the literature and provides a historical context for the nearly one thousand entries that follow. Cross-referenced throughout, the literature is presented in six thematic categories that include introductory and background materials, feminism and the development of feminist theology, topical literatures in feminist theology, feminism and womanist theology, religious leadership of women, and responses and recent developments. Separate author, subject, and title indexes complete the volume.
In Caring for Joy: Narrative, Theology, and Practice Mary Clark Moschella offers a new account of the value of joy in caregiving vocations, demonstrating how the work of caring for persons, communities, and the world need not be a dreary endeavor overwhelmed by crises or undermined by despair. Moschella presents glimpses of joy-in-action in the narratives of five notable figures: Heidi Neumark, Henri Nouwen, Gregory Boyle, Pauli Murray, and Paul Farmer, gleaning their wisdom for the construction of a theology of joy that embodies compassion, connection, justice, and freedom. Care must be deep enough to hold human suffering and spacious enough to take in the divine goodness, beauty, and love. This book expands the pastoral theological imagination and narrates joy-full approaches to transformational care. “This work is a scholarly, engaging and compassionate call to reconsider the significance of joyful living and joyful lives in radical pastoral theology.” — Heather Walton, University of Glasgow, President of the International Academy of Practical Theology, July 2016. “Based on biographies, interviews, and life stories, Mary Clark Moschella presents joy as a counter-cultural emotion, as a spiritual path, and as a fruit of the Spirit. In her research, joy and reason are not ultimately opposed.” — Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner, Professor of Pastoral Care, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, July 2016. “This highly readable and compelling theology of joy will inspire you to explore how joy might energize your vocation, especially caregiving vocations that use narrative approaches to spiritual care and pastoral counseling. I plan on using this book as a textbook in my theodicy, grief, death and dying, and vocational courses.” — Carrie Doehring, Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Iliff School of Theology, Denver, August 2016 “Mary Moschella has given us a rare text, one that is theologically rich, intellectually sophisticated, drenched in pastoral wisdom, and beautifully written. She gives us a pastoral theology attuned to the realities of diversity and sensitive to the complex challenges facing those who lives constantly interface with suffering. There is simply nothing else like this book in pastoral care.” — Willie James Jennings, Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale University, August 2016
Asks what sorts and sources of knowing we should consider compelling as we seek to live morally responsible lives. Contends that Martin Luther's theology of the cross provides a solid theological and ethical basis for a surprisingly congenial conversation with feminist thought and scholarship on these issues.
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