Faith and Feminism: Ecumenical Essays

by Phyllis Trible (Editor), B. Diane Lipsett (Editor)

Overview

Faith and Feminism brings together leading voices in biblical studies, inter-religious encounters, theology and ethics. Originally delivered as part of the Phyllis Trible Lecture Series at Wake Forest University School of Divinity (2003-2013), these essays demonstrate the breadth of feminist interpretation on compelling topics: interpretation of sacred texts; Judeo-Christian and Islamic perspectives; gender and sexuality; race and cultural identity; and ecology and religion. An international group of writers, both established scholars and new voices, contribute. Readers can explore the impact of feminisms on faiths and faiths on feminisms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664239695
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	10/17/2014
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Phyllis Trible is Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The author of influential works such as God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality and Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Trible specializes in literary and rhetorical analysis of biblical texts from a feminist perspective.

B. Diane Lipsett is Assistant Professor of Religion at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Specializing in literary analysis of early Christian texts, Lipsett is the author of Desiring Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, Aseneth.

Read an Excerpt

"Faith and Feminism unlocks storehouses of words old and new. The subtitle Ecumenical Essays indicates that these words, these tongues, belong to women of faith around the world—women who speak in diverse settings and situations. Though all the contributors claim the noun 'feminism,' their developments of it range widely. To present their testimonies and engage the results marks the purpose of this book. Where dissonance and harmony intersect among writers, there readers confront choices, which, in turn, become their own testimonies."

—from Chapter 1

Table of Contents

Preface

Contributors

Chapter 1 Testimonies in Tongues

B. Diane Lipsett and Phyllis Trible

Part One Biblical Studies

Chapter 2 The Dilemma of Dominion

Phyllis Trible

Chapter 3 From Pawn to Selfhood: The Character Leah

Wilma Ann Bailey

Chapter 4 Folklore, Feminism, and the Ambiguity of Power

Women's Voice in Genesis?

Susan Niditch

Chapter 5 The Journey of a Girl Who Talks Back: Mark's Syropheonician Woman

Hisako Kinukawa

Chapter 6 Sacraments of Friendship: Embodied Love in the Gospel of John

Gail R. O'Day

Part Two Inter-religious Ventures

Chapter 7 Learning in the Presence of the Other:

Feminisms and the Interreligious Encounter

Mary C. Boys

Chapter 8 Speaking from Behind the Veil: Does Islamic Feminism Exist?

Hibba Abugideiri

Chapter 9 The Emergence of Muslim American Feminism

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad

Chapter 10 Sarah and Hagar: A Feminist European Perspective on Actual Controversies

Ulrike Bechmann

Chapter 11 The Women of Jericho: Dramatization as Feminist Hermeneutics

Ulrike Bechmann

Part Three Theology and Ethics

Chapter 12 Ecological Theology in Women's Voices

Elizabeth A. Johnson

Chapter 13 Daily Life Challenges as the Criterion for Biblical and Feminist Theological Hermeneutics

Ivone Gebara

Chapter 14 Do You Understand What You Are Reading? African Women's Reading of the Bible and the Ethos of Contemporary Christianity in Africa

Mercy Amba Oduyoye

Chapter 15 With Running Mouth and Hands on Hips: Saphire and the Moral Imagination

Emilie M. Townes

Chapter 16 Why Do Men Need the Goddess? Male Creation of Female Religious Symbols

Rosemary Radford Ruether

Selected Bibliography

Index of Scripture References

Index of Authors and Editors

Index of Subjects

Editorial Reviews

"This volume, edited by two scholars known for their close reading and graceful writing about religious texts, comes at an important time: when people of faith committed to the full humanity of all wo/men, but separated both by different religious traditions and by the distance between our countries and continents, need resources for igniting conversations with each other. Though it includes important work by senior scholars in Christian feminist and womanist theological circles, the contributions of the emerging scholars in these pages will do at least as much to move these conversations forward. Feminists who situate themselves within Christian communities will do well to study long and hard the contributions from Muslim feminist scholars featured here. North American readers will learn much from those who offer their contributions from the other continents. Let the conversations, contentions and disclosure go forward."
—Shelly Matthews, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University

"This book offers a stunning new horizon for insights, through feminist lenses, into the meanings of religious faith and the liberating appeal of genuine moral imperatives. Scholarly and practical doors are opened by the interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, ecumenical, and interfaith conversations that are advanced by these essays. The volume as a whole is elegant and reader-friendly. It will transform the minds and hearts of those, both women and men, who enter into its riches."
—Margaret A. Farley, Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics, Yale University Divinity School

From the Publisher