Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

North American feminist theologian. She was professor of historical theology at Howard University's School of Religion from 1967 to 1972, has taught at the divinity schools of Harvard and Yale and in Scandinavia, and is currently professor of applied theology at the Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She has been influential in the formation of ‘liturgical communities’ which seek by their reformulation of the language and ideas of traditional Christianity to effect a ‘liberation of humanity from patriarchy’ and a healing of ‘the splits between “masculine” and “feminine”, between mind and body, between males and females as gender groups’. Women-Church of 1986 offers liturgies for the use of such communities which mark life experiences formally unacknowledged by the traditional church, including rites for lesbian partnerships, and the healing of rape. For the time being, these ‘autonomous bases’ are to exist apart from and alongside the traditional church, both as a challenge to ecclesiastical patriarchy and as a nurture base for women seeking ‘rebirth into a new community of being and living’. Ambivalent towards the biblical origins of Christianity which are, she maintains, largely patriarchal in character, she nevertheless regards Jesus as the embodiment of the reversal of patriarchy, who can be encountered ‘in the form of our sister’ in the community ... log in or subscribe to read full text